Shaman Huntress - Titanomachia - RWBY [Archive of Our Own] (2024)

Chapter 1: Domain Expansion: Memory Mosaic

Chapter Text

This might have been one of the weirdest pranks team RWBY have ever been apart of. And considering the blonde bombshell on their team and her partner-in-crime on their sister team, a certain hammer wielding ginger, were the most notorious pranksters of their year, that was saying a lot.

The ‘prank’ in question was an innocuous looking box that appeared in the middle of their room. Well, ‘appeared’ in that it wasn’t there when they left for classes in the morning. And considering their room was locked and accessible only with their scrolls- none of which were missing- it was pretty obvious that no one could have broken into their room to drop the mysterious package. That the window showed no signs of forced entry only reinforced that observation.

“Maybe Professor Goodwitch delivered it?” Yang suggested. It was a viable option. As Deputy Headmistress, she had a master key with access to every students’ room. It wasn’t out of the realm of possibility to consider that she left the box.

“You think she wouldn’t inform us if she did? I highly doubt that.” Weiss dismissed the excuse and walked up to the box, crouching down to give it a good look. It was a small box, about the size of her hand. There was no postal code or note on it to explain where it came from. Carefully lifting it off the ground, Weiss rose to her feet.

“Anything?” Ruby asked, watching her teammate inspect all sides of the box.

Weiss released a frustrated huff. “Nothing. No note, no insignia, nothing to indicate what is in it or where it came from. Maybe we should give it to a teacher.”

“Come on, Weiss!” Yang released her characteristic groan whenever Weiss or Blake suggested something she deemed “boring”. “Don’t tell me you aren’t even the slightest bit curious to know what’s in it.”

“I am…not!” The heiress’ haughty tone failed to hide the hesitation present in her answer.

Blake chose that moment to interject. “I think what Yang is trying to say is that whoever left this…box here probably went through a lot of trouble to do so. Clearly, they wanted it to be found by us. Why not at least see what it’s all about?”

Her suggestion was met with pleasing looks from Ruby and Yang. Weiss, however, still looked hesitant.

Sensing her partner’s hesitation, Ruby spoke up. “Here’s what we’ll do, Weiss. We open it and see what’s inside. If it looks dangerous, we hand it over to Ms. Goodwitch immediately. How’s that?”

Ruby’s compromise worked because Weiss’ guarded look dropped immediately. “Fine,” she relented. “No ifs, ands or buts about it if it looks dangerous. Even if it relates to White Fang.” Weiss gave Blake a pointed look, the latter responding with a nod.

The Schnee heiress opened the box, revealing that there was apparently a note folded up neatly and placed inside.

“Who places the note inside the item to be delivered?” Regardless, Weiss unfolded the note and read its contents out loud.

Team RWBY,

I’m sure you are wondering about the strange arrival of this package. Don’t be alarmed, it’s nothing harmful to you, or anyone your school. Consider it a gift, from one universe to another, for your entertainment.

Inside this box is a flash drive containing set of videos about the alternate lives and experiences of yourselves, and many members of your world. Yes, I meant your world. The multiverse is real, and your universe is but one of a nigh-infinite number of universes. The experiences of your alternate selves have been gathered and edited together like an television show, with musical scores, soundtracks and even opening and ending themes, for a coherent and enjoyable storytelling experience.

This video will play only for the eyes of the following individuals:

Ruby Rose

Weiss Schnee

Blake Belladonna

Yang Xiao Long

Jaune Arc

Nora Valkyrie

Pyrrha Nikos

Lie Ren

Penny Polendina (optional)

Do not bring anyone outside of those listed above. Failure to adhere to these instructions will result in dire consequences.

Best wishes,

Inter-dimensional Imaginary Apparition, Blahk.

Team RWBY spent the first few moments blinking dumbly as they tried to process the contents of the letter.

Yang was the first to respond. “What the f*ck ?”

Her reaction was the spark that jolted them from their thoughts.

“What nonsense is this?” Weiss demanded, turning the letter to see if there was a hidden message to uncover. “Are we seriously supposed to believe this tomfoolery?”

“It does sound far-fetched,” Blake admitted. Videos about alternate versions of themselves? Alternate dimensions? It sounded like the start of a rather elaborate prank.

“The multiverse is real?” That part was the focal point of Ruby’s awe. The concept wasn’t new to her, having watched and read various movies, shows and comics talking about it. It was still hard to wrap her head around.

Weiss scoffed derisively. “I should have known this was a prank. What else could it have been?”

“That still doesn’t answer how they got into our room,” said Yang. “How else would you explain that?”

Weiss stared at her disbelievingly. “Oh, so you’re telling me it’s easier to believe that an eldritch entity from an unknown dimension sent us a flash drive to watch movies from than this being an elaborate prank by a student with a strange Semblance?” she fired back.

“Even if it is a prank, it seems pretty harmless as far as pranks go.” Yang’s retort was just as hot. “Might as well humour whoever it is that did this, and if it truly is a prank, we lose nothing.”

“We don’t lose ‘nothing’!” Weiss was nearly nose-to-nose with Yang, glowering at each other. “We lose valuable time that could be spent working on schoolwork and training, both for our career as Huntresses and the Vytal Festival!”

“Enough!” Ruby’s yell broke through the din of their raised voices and Blake’s attempt to break up the argument.

Having gotten their attention, Ruby sighed before turning to her partner. “Weiss, is the flash drive in the box right now?”

“Yes.”

“Give it to me.” Ruby raised her hand to stall Weiss’ objections. “Just hand it over. And the letter.”

Grumbling but ultimately complying with her leader’s command, Weiss fished out the flash drive from its containment, dropped it and the letter in the reaper’s open hand.

Ruby turned the drive over in her palm, inspecting both sides for any strange or identifiable markings. For all intents and purposes, it looked like an ordinary black flash drive. She reread the letter twice, keeping her eyes peeled for any clues indicating there was a hidden message or something.

Looking up to meet her friends’ expectant looks, Ruby steeled herself for what she was about to announce. “I’ve listened to Yang’s and Weiss’ arguments for and against going through with the course of action listed in the letter and I have decided…to go along with it.”

As expected, Yang pumped her fists in excitement and Blake had a ghost of a smile on her face. Weiss, however, looked appalled by Ruby’s suggestion.

“Ruby! The Vytal Festival is only a few weeks away!” Weiss’ voice was reaching shrieking (or schnrieking, as Yang would say) decibels. “We don’t have time to entertain unnecessary distractions. For all we know, this could be an attempt by a student from another school to sabotage Beacon!”

Weiss’ arguments were sound. Team RWBY already had some of the best teamwork ever seen in a first-year team but they would be going up against teams of various years from all over the world. There was no telling what they would be up against, so they had to be prepared for everything. Still, Weiss’ fixation on the festival would run them ragged if they overworked themselves.

“Weiss,” Ruby began, “I know the Vytal Festival is important. And we have been preparing to not just partake in it, but to win as well. But constant and endless practice will only tire us out long before the Festival nears us. This,” she gestured to the flash drive, “might be a good way to relax and keep up from burning out in between training and schoolwork.”

Weiss still looked hesitant but she saw the wisdom in her leader’s words. All work with no time for rest in between would be damaging to them not just physically, but mentally as well.

“Worst case scenario, it is a prank.” Ruby continued. “If it is, we destroy the drive. No harm, no foul.”

Weiss gave a long-suffering sigh, having recognized when she lost an argument. “Fine then. When do we watch it?”

“How about this night?” Yang suggested. “It’s Friday, so we have no school tomorrow. Depending on how long it is, we may or may not binge it during the weekend.”

“And even if we aren’t able to, we could always finish it during the week.” Blake noted Weiss’ retort and interjected before she could say anything. “After schoolwork and training.”

Sufficiently placated, Weiss nodded in satisfaction. “These terms are favourable.”

Yang pumped her fists into the air again. “Woohoo! Movie night! I’ll get the popcorn and drinks.”

“No alcohol,” all three of her friends stated simultaneously.

Yang leveled a deadpan glare at them. “What do you take me for?”

Ignoring her sister’s indignation, Ruby turned to the other girls. “Here’s what we’re gonna do. Yang and Blake, tell team JNPR that we have a movie night planned and try to convince them to join us. Also get Ren and Nora’s help with setting up snacks.” Yang and Blake nodded in agreement. “Weiss, Pyrrha and Jaune will set up the laptop, blankets and pillows for easy and comfortable watching.”

“And what will you do?” Weiss asked.

Ruby held up her scroll. “Trying to contact Penny. We haven’t spoken since that night at the docks, so I hope I’ll be able to reach her.”

“Question.” Blake raised her hand slightly. “Isn’t this all a bit much for what might be a prank?”

“If it is, we might as well turn it into an actual movie night. That new Grimm Impossible movie is out on streaming now so we might as well see it.”

Yang stretched her arms over her head. “All right. We have our assignments, let’s get to it, Blakey.”

The girls left the room as one. Blake and Yang to inform team JNPR of their plans and enlist Ren and Nora’s help with food, and Weiss to enlist Pyrrha and Jaune’s help with their pillow and blanket fort.

Ruby deviated from her team to make her call. As she dialed Penny’s number, she hoped her friend was available for their plans. The letter had said bringing Penny was optional but Ruby wouldn’t object to spending more time with her new friend.

Night had fallen over Beacon, the shattered moon bathing the school in a cool glow. Where most students had already gone to bed, taking advantage of the weekend to get some much needed beauty sleep, nine teenagers (technically, eight teenagers and one android) gathered themselves together in team RWBY’s dorm for the anticipated movie night.

Blankets and pillows covered nearly every inch of the floor between the makeshift bunks. Bowls of popcorn and cookies surrounded the teens, as well as multiple cans of various flavors of soda. All this together with the image of the teens scattered across the various parts of the floor formed what could only be called organized chaos.

“Oh, I can’t believe I’m attending my first sleepover. I am excited you invited me, Friend Ruby!” Penny squealed, pulling the reaper in for a bone crushing hug that had Ruby’s face turning blue within seconds. And she was even more elated that General Ironwood permitted her to be with people her “age”.

“Is everyone ready?” Ruby asked once she had been freed from the crushing confines of Penny’s arms and gotten her breathing back under control.

“Ready to watch videos of other versions of us sent by a cosmic entity for our entertainment? Sure, why not?” The disbelief in Jaune’s comment was palpable but understandable. Even after reading the letter for themselves and seeing the flash drive, it was still a crazy concept to wrap their heads around.

“Here goes nothing.” With that said, Weiss plugged the drive into her laptop. The effect was immediate. It was as if a switch was flipped as the room became recolored in negative scale, an eerie chill permeating the air around them.

The teens were instantly on their guard, rising to their feet and eyeing the changes in the room with suspicion.

“What the hell is this?” Yang asked, fists raised in preparation for any sudden attack.

Blake’s head snapped towards Weiss. “What happened?”

“I-I don’t know! All I did was plug in the stupid drive!” Everyone’s heads snapped as one to face the still plugged in flash drive and their eyes widened when they took in its new status. Unlike before when it looked innocuous, the drive was now wreathed in an inky dark red energy.

“You’re telling me the flash drive caused this?!” Jaune’s look was a mixture of shock and confusion. “Somebody unplug it!”

Before anyone could make a move for the device, the screen began to glitch. Windows opened and closed in rapid succession, and a strange buzzing sound began to emit from the speaker. In the midst of all the glitching, a strange wall of text sprang up.

D̶̡͕̻̜͔͇̗̘͂̑̒͝o̶̩̱̥̹̠͂̓̃͑͌̿m̸̤̪̭͍̐̀͑̽͂͂͋ȧ̷̱͖͖̳̲̌̋̐̃̚̚i̵̢͕̻͊̃̽͘͠ñ̴̫̼̖̀̒̓̆͠ ̸̰̫͖̝̜̟̐̆̅̓͜ͅE̷̛̼͇̪̅ͅx̴̛̙̋͂̌͒͘͘p̴̬͓̗͂a̵̢͕͖̟͓͎̮͉͛ņ̶̮̖͇̰̪̝̆̽ͅs̶̫͔̺͔̬̰̠̙̈́i̵̪̳̼̭̻̱̓́̂́͆o̸͚͕̣̖͂̽ń̴̘͇͙̟͔̐̓͑̌̒̀̋ͅ:̴̜̮̾̂̋́͂̏̀͝ ̵̡̲̜̯̖̬̌M̶̜͇͍͍̥̃̀̋̆̂̚͜è̴̙͎̟͈̋̎̍m̸̨̡̖͇͖̳̆̒ó̶̫͙̰̦̲̍̽r̷̢̭̠̘͎͕͚̣̅͐́̄͠y̶͈̔ ̶̰̱̥͉͇̾̉͋͒͘M̴͓̪̩̻̘͕̮̘͑̑̏̃̋̚͠o̶̭̊s̷͈̩̳̞̹̞͔̩̉͂̏̃͆ä̴͓͓͈͓̭͓͉̳́́̓̋͛͂̚i̸͕͌̆̄͑̉͌͠͝c̷̨͉͎̗̘͎͔̍ ̵̘̀̓́̓́

D omain Activated. Conditions are set.

Do you wish to watch Jujutsu Kaisen?

<Yes> or <No>

“What the hell?” Blake’s look of utter befuddlement was mirrored by her friends and sister team. A fitting reaction, given the oddity of the situation they found themselves in.

Pyrrha scrutinized the words on the screen. Unfortunately, she was unable to read the first line as it was covered with illegible scribble; at least she thought so. “Domain activated? Jujutsu Kaisen?”

“I think it is what we are about to watch,” Ren said.

Weiss was far from convinced about the entire scenario. “And what does that have to do with our room’s design change?”

“I think…” Ruby piped up for the first time since the flash drive was plugged in. “…we should answer the prompt first.”

“Are you sure we should do that?” Jaune’s hesitation was shared by other occupants of the room. Even Ruby, who brought up the idea looked unsure.

Ruby steeled herself. “We’ve come this far, we might as well see it through.” Turning back to the laptop, Ruby moved the cursor over to the prompts. For a brief moment, the cursor hovered over the No option before clicking on Yes.

In an instant, the room returned to its natural colouring. The teens breathed easier upon seeing their surroundings return to normal but their trepidation was not entirely gone. They settled back into their former positions even as the wall of text melted away to reveal a file titled Jujutsu Kaisen.

“Jujutsu Kaisen?” Pyrrha muttered but kept mute when Ruby clicked on it revealing a bunch of videos numbering twenty-four in total.

“So this is it, huh?” Yang said, scooping a handful of popcorn into her mouth.

Ruby nodded. “I guess so.” Clicking on the first episode, they all settled down for what was about to be a long night.

Chapter 2: Ryōmen Salem

Chapter Text

Jaune groggily opened his eyes as he came back to consciousness.

"Morning," a woman’s voice echoed.

Jaune raised his head, face caked with bruises. Smiling at him was a woman wearing a black zip-up jacket with a high collar, matching black pants and black boots. Her eyes were covered up with a black blindfold and her face was framed by black hair with white tips.

Yang and Ruby jerked in their spots at the familiar voice booming from the speaker. Mom? Their friends hadn’t noticed their reaction so they stayed put. Perhaps it may end up being nothing, they reasoned.

“Holy sh*t,” Nora swore. “You look like you just went ten rounds against an Ursa, Jaune.”

“Tell me about it.” Jaune visibly cringed at the sorry state his counterpart was in. He barely noticed Pyrrha tensing from her spot beside him.

Jaune finally took note of his strange surroundings. The room they were in appeared to be covered with talismans, pieces of paper with strange writing and symbols, at every corner. Yellow lamps illuminated the room in a soft glow. His vision returned to the woman in the room.

"So which one are you right now?" the woman asked, arms crossed over her chair.

Pyrrha's eyebrows pinched in confusion. "Which one...? What sort of question is that?"

Ruby and Yang once again couldn’t help but note the similarities between Summer’s voice and the woman onscreen. That they had the same hair colour didn’t help matters.

"Aren't you…" Jaune replied slowly.

"Summer Gojo," she introduced herself. "I'm in charge of the first years at Jujutsu Tech."

“Mom?!” the sisters yelled in unison, their suspicions now cleared.

“Wait, Mom?” Nora’s head swiveled back and forth between the frozen image onscreen and the sisters. It was impossible to see the facial similarities due to Gojo’s blindfold, and the different hair colors didn’t help matters.

Sensing the confusion brewing among their friends, Yang elaborated. “By now, you all know that Ruby and I are half-sisters. Well, we share the same father, but different mothers. Summer here is Ruby’s biological mother. Of course, Summer was still more of a mom to me than Raven ever was.” Her explanation finished with that bitter acknowledgment at the end.

Sensing that this was a rather sensitive topic for both girls, they all left it at that.

“Gojo though?” Ruby piped up, half in genuine confusion and half in an effort to distract Yang from her dark thoughts. “Weird. I prefer Rose.”

“And it’s weird seeing white in Mom’s hair,” Yang chimed in.

“What color gradient was her hair?” Blake asked.

“Black-to-red, just like Ruby’s. Honestly, Ruby is almost the spitting image of Summer.”

"Jujutsu…" Jaune parroted, slowly coming out of his daze. "Ren…Senpai!" He jerked forward but was held back by the restraints keeping him bound. His arms were tied behind the chair with the two ends splitting off and connected to two metal spikes staked to the floor. The binds were riddled with talismans as well.

"What is this?"

"Why's Jaune-Jaune all tied up? What are those paper things attached to the ropes and on the walls? Why does he look all beat up? And what do you have to do with it?" Nora fired off question after question at Ren, shaking the poor teen.

"Now Nora, I'm sure we'll receive more information on that soon enough," Pyrrha said to placate Nora and free poor Ren from her clutches. He was going dizzy from all the shaking.

"I'm not sure you should be worrying about others, Jaune Arc. It's been decided that you'll be secretly executed," Gojo said nonchalantly, much to the teen's horror.

Everyone in the room was stunned by that revelation. For a few seconds there was absolute silence, and like a countdown to a bomb going off, the room exploded into a cacophony of noise.

"The hell?!" Yang and Nora yelled.

"What could he possibly have done to warrant an execution?" Blake asked, mirroring Weiss’ dumbfounded expression.

Jaune stared at the screen in horror akin to that of his counterpart’s. Beside him, Pyrrha’s nervous grip threatened to crush her soda can.

[][][]

(Opening Theme: Kaikai Kitan by Eve) [1]

The opening theme opens up with a visual of Jaune waking up from a nap and sitting alone on a train. The car appears to be filled with water nearly up to his waist. A fish swims close by.

"Huh? You can't just cut after that reveal!" Ruby yelled at the screen, clicking on pause.

Nora backed her up. "Yeah! Why's Jaune about to be executed?"

"And what even is this?" Blake asked, staring at the visuals and musical number in confusion.

Weiss smacked her forehead in realization. “I can’t believe I forgot that. The letter said that our counterpart’s lives was arranged and edited together like an actual TV show. This…” She gestured to the visuals on the screen. “would be some kind of opening theme.”

“Huh.” Yang hummed. “If our counterparts’ lives are a show, I wonder who the protagonist is.”

“It’s Jaune,” Blake said immediately.

The speed of her reply drew questioning looks from her friends.

“Why me?” Jaune asked, surprised that he was Blake’s first choice.

“Think about it,” she began, “in less than a minute into the episode, we’re not only introduced to Jaune but also told that he is about to be executed. He looks younger than our Jaune, about 15 or 16 years old, so telling us that he is about to be executed will keep us hooked about how he got there.”

Pyrrha shuddered at the reminder of Jaune’s execution.

Blake continued. “It’s a technique used in writing or film production. In medias res which literally translates to ‘in the midst of things’. It’s a literary term used to describe when a story opens up with the character(s) already in the middle of things.”

“Like a car chase,” Yang piped up.

“Exactly,” Blake said. “It’s a narrative technique that captures the audience’s attention, bringing them front and center into the thick of things.”

“It certainly worked because I cannot fathom what Jaune could have done to warrant an execution,” Pyrrha said, gripping said teen’s hand tightly.

“Well, we won’t learn anything if we keep talking. Let’s carry on,” Ren said.

Ruby clicked on play and the opening resumed.

An overhead shot of Japan is shown as the title of the show fades into view in blood-red ink: Jujutsu Kaisen. [2]

Uzou muzou hito no nari

[Revealing their true hidden colours]

Kyosei shinshou jingai mononoke mitai da

[The masses form like an army of vengeful wights]

Ren squats below a road tunnel, inspecting something on the ground. Seemingly done, he gets up and leaves.

Kyoshin tankai inochi yadoshi

[Some hearts are kind, foolishly living life]

Ato wa pappara pa na nakami naki ningen

[Different names but the same vain, worthless people]

Nora walks out of the shadow of a building, stepping into the sunlight.

Yoseru kitai fubyoudou na jinsei

[Life's so unfair, expectations everywhere]

Sainou mo nai daijou hi nichijou ga

[But out of reach 'cause life taunts the talentless]

Blake takes an escalator down, hands in her pockets. Panda watches another panda through a window while Qrow is lounging in a fancy lobby, reading a book.

Onshin byoudou ni botsu kosei

[Treat equally both friend and enemy]

Tadoru kioku boku ni ibasho nado nai kara

[I truly believe that there is no place for me]

Weiss cleans her glasses against her uniform and places them back on her face. Their lenses reveal a curse climbing out of a pond.

Yume no hazama de naitenaide

[I wanna cry in the gaps of my dreams]

Gojo stands on the railing of a tower. She is smiling into the distance, eyes still blindfolded and hair billowing in the wind.

Donna kao sureba ii ka wakatteru

[I'm holding out for an answer please]

Dakedo mada...

[Won't someone ever reply to me? 'Cause...]

The train enters a tunnel, blanketing the train car in the darkness. The window opposite Jaune reveals his reflection now with red eyes, an extra set of eyes below his normal ones and facial markings.

...kotaete kure yo

[I don't know what to believe]

Jaune stares at the fish listlessly. The screen briefly flashes to an image of Oscar, a glowing jellyfish floating behind him. The fish leaps up at Jaune just as his cheeks deform, forming a mouth adorned with fangs.

Yami wo haratte, yami wo haratte

[We'll light up the darkness, we'll light up the darkness]

Jaune charges at a massive curse, punching it in the face. Qrow uses a blade to cut into its skin.

Yoru no tobari ga oritara aizu da

[The curtain of night will lift blessing us with a sign]

Summer fires Cursed Technique Reversal: Red into the distance.

Aitai sh*te mawaru kanjousen

[Face me and admit, this loop is infinite]

Zaregoto nado wa hakisute ike to

[This isn't the time for us to give life to lies]

Two inhuman individuals are shown briefly. One appeared to have tree stalks as eyes while the other possessed a single eye. A tiny curse floating with its eyes above the water is also briefly shown. The scene changes to civilians going about their daily activities, unaware of the curse among them; a human-looking curse with a patchwork face, licking his lips with a sad*stic smile on his face.

Mada tomenaide mada tomenaide

[Don't ever hold me back, don't ever hold me back]

Nora levitates three nails with cursed energy, Weiss readies her naginata,and Blake opens up her high collar, revealing the Snake and Fangs seal of the Belladonna clan on her tongue and cheeks.

Dare yori mo satoku aru machi ni umareshi kono shoutai wo

[My soul it was born for more than anyone else in this city

Was capable of more than just existing]

Panda parkours on rooftops, Velvet attends to Headmaster Port, and Cardin clenches his fist in preparation for a fight. A revolver is reloaded by an unknown individual, Ren charges up his cursed energy for an attack while Jaune hangs out with Oscar by a river.

Ima wa tada noroi norowareta boku no mirai wo souzou sh*te

[But now I can't imagine there's a future for a cursed man like me]

The screen shows briefly, the image of two pairs of hands forming hand seals inside of a mouth. Amber smiles at the camera and a flashback of Nora and Ruda by a train track is shown.

The scene then changes to Raven resting beside a tatami window while Summer moves to lift her blindfold.

Hash*tte koronde

[Fell again but I intend]

Kienai itami daite wa

[To fight through all the pain till the end]

The scene shows Jaune valiantly trying to push back against a wave of cursed energy that burns off his fingertips. The memory of his grandfather smiling flashes by.

Sekai ga matteru

[The world's been waiting for]

Kono isshun wo

[This final moment]

Jaune, Ren, Summer, and Oscar appear to be at a picnic together. The kids were all dressed in Jujutsu Tech uniforms, smiling at one another.

Like static, the scene shifts to Jaune standing opposite a carbon copy of himself, but with tattooed markings across his face, jet-black sclerae, and four glowing crimson eyes, dressed in a kimono and sitting in what looked like a shrine. His copy smirked darkly at him andhe glared right back.

A brown, clawed finger with a branch growing out of it was shown floating in the water. Then the scene went back to the start with Jaune going back to sleep, the markings from earlier fading away.

"That was awesome!" Nora and Ruby cheered, dancing around the room with Penny who looked confused by their excitement but was just as happy to be carried along. Their cheerful sentiments were echoed by their friends.

"It was better than I expected," Weiss muttered through a mouthful of popcorn. Blake hummed in agreement.

"Why do I have an evil twin?" Unlike his friends, Jaune was not left in a good mood after seeing the weird things happening to him. That he was about to be secretly executed right before the intro played did not help matters. "And mouths on my face?!"

Ren was quick to alleviate his concerns, placing a comforting hand on his shoulder. "Do not fret, Jaune. I’m sure the reason for the images in the intro will be revealed soon enough."

“It may not even matter,” Yang assured her fellow blond. “A lot of shows make use of crazy imagery in their intros all the time.”

Blake decided to join the conversation, reaching for the snack bowl as she added her two cents. “Didn’t Ms. Gojo ask ‘which one are you now’ earlier? Maybe that ties into the ‘evil twin’ in the intro.”

“It could be metaphorical, not literal,” Weiss commented.

Pyrrha noticed that the blonde knight still didn't look convinced. She squeezed his hand gently, smiling gently. "It's okay, Jaune. Try not to fret, okay?"

He nodded, squeezing her hand in gratitude as he turned back to the screen, oblivious to the tiny blush that graced her cheeks.

"Is everyone ignoring the panda that was running across the rooftops?" Penny murmured to herself. She wondered if there was something in her new friends’ beverages that caused them to ignore it. No one seemed to bring it up so the android kept her thoughts to herself. Perhaps it was metaphorical like Weiss said.

[][][]

Episode 1: Ryomen Salem

The group stared at the odd title in silence, before ultimately shrugging.

'Arc' was written on a rusty house plate, and a telephone rang in the background. "Hello, Sugisawa Hospital."

"Oh, this is Arc," the teen replied. Jaune stood in the hallway of his home, telephone in hand. He was dressed in his usual Pumpkin Pete hood, jeans that were rolled up to his shins, and a pair of socks.

Weiss grimaced. "Still wearing that crime against fashion even in another universe?"

"Hey!" Jaune yelled, indignant. "Take that back!"

“No.”

"I just called earlier. Yes. I'm sorry to keep calling, but how is my grandpa doing?"

Jaune perked up. "Grandpa? He's still alive in this universe?" Sensing the questioning looks his friends sent him, he quickly elaborated. "It's just, I never met him. According to my father, he was a Huntsman before he died on a mission..." He awkwardly trailed off.

"Huh? I thought they already told you," the nurse replied. "Oh, please hold on. I'll go ask myself." She dropped the phone on her desk, leaving to check on Jaune's grandfather.

"Mr. Arc never uses his call button," another nurse commented.

"It's actually scary that he doesn't."

"Mr. Arc, you have a call." The nurse who picked up the phone peered into the room. "Jaune’s asking if you want him to bring any–"

"Leave me alone!" the old man yelled, startling the nurse and others in the corridor. "Tell him not to come!" he said, yelling into the call station beside his bed. Nurse 3 from the reception flinched at the man's shout over the phone. "He should go to his club! His club!"

Blake quirked an eyebrow. "Your grandfather is... eccentric," she finished lamely, unsure of how to word her thoughts in an inoffensive manner.

Jaune opened his mouth to fire back a retort but thought better of it. She wasn’t wrong.

On his end, Jaune stared at the phone impassively. "What? What's going on?" Nurse 2 asked. "You heard him. What club are you in Jaune?" the first nurse asked.

"I heard. I'll come by tomorrow evening," Jaune said, calmly dismissing her and hanging up.

"You shouldn't just dismiss a lady like that, Jauney boy," Yang teased.

"Bite me," he sniped. He regretted it immediately when Yang wiggled her eyebrows suggestively at his comment.

[][][]

The scene switched to Miyashiro Prefectural Sugisawa Third High School at night. Footsteps echoed in the darkness as Ren walked up to the school.

"Renny, it's you!" Nora said.

"I can see that, Nora." Ren’s reply was delivered, as usual when concerning his partner, with the patience of a saint.

He looked the same but was dressed in the standard Jujutsu High uniform with a dark blue jacket. His uniform pants matched his jacket and only reached just above his shins. He wore long black socks that cover his exposed ankles and finished his outfit with low-top brown shoes.

Ren walked up to the small cabinet, stopping a few feet away from it. "They’re keeping a cursed object in a place like this? Could they be any dumber?"

"Cursed object?" Weiss asked.

"Just keep watching Ice Queen." Ruby’s comment drew an icy glare from the aforementioned ice queen.

Ren approached the cabinet and hesitated when he noticed the latch was undone. "Hm?" He opened the latch to the small cabinet only to pause on finding it empty. He frantically searched all around the cabinet, even closing and reopening it.

Jaune snorted. "Your face!" Nora cackled as well, fishing out her scroll to take a quick picture. Not even Pyrrha could hide her grin.

Ren shrunk in embarrassment while everyone chuckled.

He dialed a number on his phone. "There's nothing here."

"Huh?" A voice recognizable as Gojo’s could be heard from the other end.

"The Stevenson screen's empty."

"For real? That's hilarious! Maybe it took a nighttime stroll."

"I'll punch you."

The group chuckled at the deadpan delivery of his threat. Like it was a daily occurrence.

"Well, no going home until it's recovered, okay?" Gojo abruptly hung up.

"I'm seriously going to punch her next time," Ren said, unamused.

"Y’know, it just hit me. Why did Ren call Mom?" Yang asked. "What's their connection to each other?"

"Weren't you listening earlier?" Weiss asked. "Your mother is a teacher in this world. More than likely, Ren is one of the first years she mentioned being in charge of."

"Oh."

[][][]

The next day, in the same school, students mingled around for club activities.

"Ready to go?" Jaune asked his seniors together with him in the Occult Phenomenon Research Club. "Are you really sure, Sasaki-senpai?"

She grunted in affirmation.

"Iguchi-senpai?"

He also grunted in affirmation.

"Okay, here we go!"

They each placed a finger on the Ouija board on the table. "Spirits, spirits, please tell us. Which creature is the council president just barely weaker than?!"

“Hey, I remember that!” Yang exclaimed. It had been a while since she’d last played with an Ouija board. Memories of sleepovers with Ruby and/or her friends sprung to the forefront of her mind. Fun times spent trying to overcome their fear of ghosts, talking to the dead and whatnot.

“I am unfamiliar with this contraption. What is it and what are they doing?” Penny inquired.

“They’re trying to talk to spirits.” Blake explained. “An Ouija board, or spirit board as it is also known, is a device that many believe to be used as a tool for divination. Things like talking to the dead, summoning demons, etc.”

Pyrrha, who was just as in the dark as Penny, co*cked her head in confusion. “Talk to the dead? Does it actually work?”

“Wait, you’ve never played with an Ouija board before?” Jaune cut in, looking at his partner in surprise. His mouth dropped even further when she, as well as Ren and Nora, shook their heads in negative.

Jaune and Ruby locked eyes and nodded. An unspoken message was conveyed in a single look; expose their friends to any childhood experiences they missed out on, whether due to childhood trauma or awkward upbringing.

“I’d answer your question but it looks like our team leaders have something planned for later.” Blake said with a small smile.

The Ouija marker began to move. "Oh? Se-a an-gel?"

The trio burst into laughter. "A sea angel can beat him?! What a small fry!" Jaune cackled.

Ruby huffed in amusem*nt.

Just then, the council president slammed the door open. "Occult club!"

"Hey, Plankton President! What's up?" Jaune greeted much to Sasaki's amusem*nt.

"Pfft! Good one!" Nora cackled together with Yang.

The student council president slammed a paper onto the table. "As you were previously informed, a research club with no real activities must forfeit its club room," he said as the three read through the notice. "So vacate this room at once!"

"You shouldn’t underestimate our members, President," Jaune told him with a smirk. Meanwhile, Sasaki stood up, grabbed a ledger titled Mysterious Events: File 9 , and slammed it onto the table.

"What is that?" the president asked.

Jaune, Sasaki and Iguchi smirked darkly.

Weiss shuddered. "Creepy."

Sasaki turned to the president. "You know about our rugby field being closed down, right?"

"Yes," he replied. "Some of the students who fell ill were actually hospitalized."

"Don’t you think that’s strange?" she asked, pointing a finger at him. "We’re talking about tough rugby players here. Truth is, the players said they started hearing…" Rugby players jumped at a mysterious banging sound on the goalpost. "…mysterious sounds and voices right before they fell ill." A rugby player was shown shivering at the whispers and murmurs coming from the ball.

"That’s when we found this newspaper article from 30 years ago." Sasaki held up a newspaper clipping displayed in the ledger. "It talks about the disappearance of Yoshida-san, who worked with the construction company…" She turned a page, revealing more information. "…and it mentions he was last sighted here at Sugisawa Third High School during construction."

"Hm?" While the information was intriguing, the president still had his doubts.

"Yoshida-san was struggling to make ends meet, so he turned to loan sharks, and those organizations were after him. Which means!" Sasaki declared. "The whole disaster at the rugby field was caused by the vengeful spirit of Yoshida-san, who is buried there!" she finished with a flourish, Jaune and Iguchi twirling their hands behind her on their successful investigation.

Jaune and Ruby comically joined in the hand twirling much to the amusem*nt of their friends.

“Hey, let’s form our own occult club!” Nora announced.

Ren stalled any further conversation before she could pull others into her scheme. “Let’s save this conversation for after we watch the show.”

The president was quick to shut them down. "No, it was caused by ticks," he deadpanned.

“…”

The three were stunned to silence.

"Hard ticks. A large, blood-sucking bug."

Information about ticks filled the screen with subtitles 'If one bites you and infects you with SFTS, it can be fatal, so be very careful.'

“Way to suck the fun out of everything, Plankton President,” Nora grumbled, crossing her arms.

"So what?! The occult club is trying to uncover occult activity, so it’s still a proper club activity report!" Jaune reasoned, smacking the file.

"This isn’t some kid’s game! Besides, the biggest problem is you, Jaune Arc!" The council president declared. "You’re registered with track and field, not the occult club, so this club doesn’t even have the three members required for any club!"

Face smacks rang out in the room.

Weiss had just one statement for him. "You are an idiot, Arc. No matter the universe."

Jaune slumped at his crush’s insult causing Pyrrha to level a stern look at the heiress.

"Huh?"

"Arc…" Sasaki growled, herself and Iguchi glaring at Jaune.

"No, I know I wrote down the occult club."

"I rewrote it!" a man declared.

"The track and field coach, Takagi!" Jaune yelled, clenching his fists.

"Arc, we need you so you can conquer the nationals!"

"Whoa! He's that good?" Nora asked.

Yang snorted. "That's definitely an improvement from our Jaune."

"Hey!" Jaune yelled, indignant. "I wasn't that bad..." He trailed off, gulping at the deadpan looks from team RWBY, Nora and Ren. Pyrrha avoided his gaze, finding the ceiling more interesting all of a sudden.

The council president gaped at the coach. A teacher more problematic than the students just showed up…

Blake perked up. “We’re going to see their thoughts?”

“Hehehe!” Nora rubbed her hands together while cackling like a cartoon villain. “Now we’ll have access to their innermost thoughts.”

“Isn’t this an invasion of privacy?” Weiss wasn’t completely sold on the idea.

Yang waved off her worries. “We’re already watching their lives, some of which I’m sure will be very personal. It’s fine.”

"Give it a rest!" Jaune complained. "How many times do I have to tell you I refuse?"

"You can't!"

"Why can't I?!"

"However, I’m not some demon. If you can beat me, then I’ll give up on you. Let’s settle it fair and square on the track!" Takagi challenged.

Jaune grinned. "Now it's interesting! You're on!"

“Oh? Is Jaune challenging a teacher?” Yang rubbed her hands together. This was gonna be fun!

“Go Jaune/Me!” Ruby, Nora, and Jaune cheered. Pyrrha was more reserved but she was quietly rooting for her leader/friend/crush.

Large words covered them, writing ‘Track and Field Coach Takagi vs Arc. Sasaki and Iguchi cheered Jaune on, the council president forgotten in the background.

Is it “fair and square” to rewrite a student’s club application? was his only thought.

[][][]

Ren walked through the school’s rugby field. What's with this rugby field? When he looked down, a hideous monster came out of the grass, seemingly swimming through it.

“Holy shi-!” Nora’s swear was cut off by Pyrrha’s sharp “Language!”

Yang had no such reservations. “What the f*ck was that?” Pyrrha tossed her a dirty look which she ignored.

“Is that supposed to be a type of Grimm?” Blake wondered. In their Grimm studies classes with Professor Port, they had learned that just as there were a a vast number of Grimm of different shapes and sizes, many Grimm had adaptations and abilities specific to their kind. Such as Blind Worms and their ability to spit acid or Geist and their power of possession. Nowhere in their studies was it shown that Grimm could ‘swim’ through solid surfaces.

“Maybe it’s a type of Grimm specific to this universe?” Ren said. “This is an alternate reality so we shouldn’t expect that things between our worlds will be perfectly aligned.”

“I hope so because the last thing Remnant needs are Grimm that can phase through solid matter,” Penny said.

Is there a dead body buried here or something? Even if there is, I'm surprised to see one this high-leveled. Ren watched as curse climbed up the goal pole, growling. That's probably a grade 2 curse. Must be that cursed object's influence.

Eyeballs threatened to pop out of their sockets at the sight of the curse.

“What sort of Grimm is that?” Weiss asked, face twisting in revulsion.

Blake shook her head. “That is not a Grimm. He called it a…curse.”

“Maybe that’s what the Grimm are called in their universe?” Ruby said.

“I agree with friend Blake that this is not a Grimm. For one thing, it exhibits none of the standard behavioral traits normally associated with one,” Penny stated.

Ren hummed, thoughts racing as he picked up what the android was talking about. “She’s right. For instance, why is it so docile? A normal Grimm would have attacked my counterpart already. Matter of fact, it should have attacked the school. Yet other me looks so…unbothered by it.”

“Great,” Yang drawled, popping a can of cola. “Now we’re just left with more questions than answers.”

Pyrrha shrugged, unbothered. She took the opportunity to snuggle closer to her oblivious partner. “Questions that will be answered as we keep watching.”

He continued his walk. Damn it, he cursed. Its presence is too strong to pin down. It feels like it's close by, but it could still be far away, too. He ascended the stairs while staring at his phone's screen. This special-grade cursed object is a serious pain. The image on the phone screen was of the cursed object. It looked cylindrical and wrapped in sheets of paper with strange markings on it. It was placed in a wooden box, the insides lined with red cloth.

“That’s it? That’s the ‘cursed object’ he’s been making a fuss about?” Nora asked, unimpressed. She shoved a handful of popcorn into her mouth.

“Hey, you know what they say. Good things come in small packages,” Jaune said.

Weiss gave him an arched look. “I doubt there’s anything good about a cursed object.”

Who could have moved it? Where is it now? He placed his phone in his pocket and continued his trek.

"Over here!" a student yelled. "Coach Takagi is taking on Arc from West Middle!"

"Wow, what are they competing in?" another asked.

Ren followed them to another field with a small crowd.

At the field, Takagi threw a shot-put.

"Yeah!" he shouted, striking a pose.

"Fourteen meters!" a student called out, even as Takagi struck another pose. The screen displayed 'Mistral's National Record: 18m85cm'.

"Wow, Takagi’s still got it!"

"Arc! Arc!" other students cheered.

"What are you gonna do, Arc?"

"Hey, is Jaune famous or something?" Sasaki whispered to Iguchi.

“That’s what I’d like to know, too,” Jaune muttered. While he was far from a social outcast in his old school he was nowhere near as famous as his counterpart.

Iguchi leaned in to reply. "They’re probably tall tales, but I heard he beat all stages of Ninja Warrior andthat he’s the reincarnation of a Mirko Cro Cop."

Jaune accepted the shot from Takagi, the unexpected weight nearly dragging him to the ground.

"But Mirko’s not even dead yet," Sasaki argued. In the background, Ren pulled up to the scene.

"Still, he earned the nickname ‘Tiger of West Middle’."

"Lame," Sasaki said, unimpressed.

“Agreed.” Weiss raised an eyebrow.

“Hey! It’s cool!” Ruby argued.

Jaune grinned. “You tell her, Ruby!” The two shared a high-five.

"Hey, can I just throw this however I want?" Jaune asked Takagi.

Takagi was all smiles, confident in his supposed victory. "Yep. I won’t call any fouls, so throw however you please." Jaune turned to throw the shot even as the coach kept talking. "Sorry. I wanted to demonstrate how serious I am by intentionally choosing something that isn’t your forte…"

Ignoring the man's spiel, Jaune flung the ball, causing it to sail in the air over the students' heads and dent the soccer goal.

"Uh, roughly thirty meters," the same student who measured Takagi's shot called out. Another display showed 'World Record: 23m 12cm'.

Yang whistled, impressed. “Holy sh*t, this Jaune is good. Makes me wonder how far I can throw.”

“Now I wanna fight him to test how strong he is!” Nora’s challenging grin sent a chill down Jaune’s spine.

Weiss scoffed, nose upturned. “It’s not that impressive.”

“Correction, it is an impressive feat,” Penny interjected. “A shot put’s weight isn’t particularly significant for an athletic adult but it is still a heavy object for a high school student. And while alternate Jaune used a pitcher’s throw over a standard shot put stance, that is still a lot of power behind the ball; enough to surpass the world record using a standard stance.”

Weiss pointedly ignored the sh*t-eating grins on her friends’ faces and resumed the episode.

"Yeah, I win!" Jaune pumped his fist in victory while Takagi and the other students stared wide-eyed at the astonishing feat.

"He's more gorilla than tiger, isn't he?" Sasaki commented.

"That was a pitcher's throw."

Jaune approached them, hands in his hoodie pockets. The coach remained in his wide-eyed state, seemingly catatonic.

"Jaune, you'd do well on a sports team," Sasaki told him. "You don't have to force yourself to stay in our occult club, y'know."

"Huh? But as much as you two love scary things, you couldn't go to haunted places without me, could you?" The screen split to show a flashback of 3 days ago; Jaune holding up a flashlight while Iguchi and Sasaki trembled, clinging to him.

Sasaki pouted. "We're scared because we like it."

Behind Jaune, students were taking pictures with the shell-shocked Takagi.

"Besides, this school requires everyone to be in a club, right?" Jaune jokingly gestured towards the frozen coach. "I couldn't keep up with this."

Another flashback of Sasaki and Iguchi pitching the idea of the occult club to Jaune. "You don't have to do anything! You can be a ghost member! We're the occult club after all!" Flashback Jaune gave a thumbs up.

“Ha!” Yang barked a laugh. “Ghost member, that’s a good one!”

"I did say that," Sasaki said in embarrassment.

"I want to be able to go home by 5pm for my own reasons," he continued. The students were now testing how many shots they could balance on Takagi's head. "So if it's okay with you, I'd like to stay. I like the atmosphere of the occult club a lot."

Sasaki and Iguchi blushed at the praise. "Well, if that's how it is, we don't mind."

"Yeah," Iguchi agreed and Sasaki laughed diabolically.

“I get the feeling that she’s just happy that their muscle isn’t gone,” Jaune muttered, drawing a silent chuckle from Pyrrha.

Ren walked by and stopped to stare at Jaune. That guy's incredible. He pulled that off without any cursed energy. I wonder if he's like Zenin-senpai… He moved to continue his search.

"Oh, it's already half past four!" Jaune hastily strapped on his backpack. "Well, Coach, I've got stuff to do! Later!" That snapped him out of his funk, unbalancing the shots.

Ren looked back, noticing Jaune running in his direction. Just as Jaune ran past him, Ren froze, sensing the overwhelming presence of the cursed object.

The presence of a cursed object! "Hey, you!" Ren called out as Jaune sprinted off. "He's way too fast!"

"I heard he can run 50 meters in three seconds," a nearby student said, shocking Ren. The world record was displayed as 5.47 seconds.

Nora guffawed at the funny look plastered on Ren’s face.

“Wait, what?! No way he’s that fast!” Yang stared at the screen in disbelief.

Blake was just as surprised although she hid it better than her partner. “This goes beyond just athleticism.”

“Vroom vroom!” Ruby mimed with a laugh.

"Is he a car?"

[][][]

Jaune stood at a flower shop, purchasing some to take to the hospital. At a road crossing, he attempted to keep the flowers away from the grabbing hands of an infant. Finally, he reached Sugisawa Hospital.

"I told you not to come," his grandfather chided. "Stop buying flowers to bring with you all the time."

"You always give me that," Jaune said, ignoring his grandfather's complaints. "Besides, these aren't for you. They're for the nurses."

“That’s cold, Arc,” Weiss stated.

“This is coming from the Ice Queen herself?” Yang smirked.

"All the more reason not to, you fool! And what about your club? Go to your club! Your club!"

"Oh, chill out," Jaune sighed, exasperated. "It ends before 5pm. I wouldn't be visiting you if I didn't have the free time."

"Good. Then listen to me, since I've got some free time, too."

"Not interested." Jaune shot him down instantly, causing the old man to scowl.

"Just listen well." His voice was uncharacteristically low and level. "There's something I want to tell you before the end. It's about your parents."

"I said I'm not interested," Jaune said while he filled a blue jar with water. "Grandpa, could you stop trying to act all cool before you die?"

“Just listen, dude. This may be important,” Jaune said.

"Every man wants to go out in style, you know!" his grandfather yelled. "Get a clue, you useless grandson!"

Jaune placed the water-filled jar on the windowsill and placed the flowers inside. "Quit snapping over everything. You can just be yourself."

His grandfather scoffed. " Lax upbringing." He turned over to his side, slowly closing his eyes. "Jaune."

"Hmm?"

"You're a strong kid, so help others. Even if it's only those closest to you, just save the people you can," he advised. "It’s okay if you lose your way, and don’t worry about whether they’ll thank you or not. Just save as many people as you can, even if it’s only one. When you die, you should be surrounded by people. Don’t end up like me."

His words of advice touched everyone in the room. Although it was meant for alternate Jaune, every one of them silently swore to follow the old man’s advice.

Penny didn’t think she could ever fully understand the concept of death as a result of her nature but all the same, she etched Mr. Arc’s advice deep within her artificial soul.

Jaune stared at his grandfather for a moment of silence. "Grandpa?"

[][][]

The phone to Jaune’s grandfather’s room rang in the nurses' office. A nurse picked up the phone. "Yes, what’s the matter?”

“Hello?” She paused, giving another nurse her file. “Mr. Arc?!"

Jaune sniffled, overwhelmed with sadness.

"Hello?"

"My grandpa…is dead."

Quiet gasps rang out in the silence of the room.

Despite not knowing the man, and only going off of the little they saw of him onscreen, Jaune still fought to hold back tears. His teammates huddled close to him in silent comfort and support.

Everyone else lowered their heads in respect for the knowledge of the man’s death.

Jaune stood silently, watching over his grandfather's body, even as the nurses came in and wheeled it out of the room. He then went about packing his belongings in a bag and filling out the necessary paperwork at the front desk.

"Okay, that's all of the necessary paperwork," a nurse said, collecting the filled forms.

"Okay. Thank you for everything," Jaune said.

The nurse looked concerned for him. "Are you sure you're okay?" she asked.

Jaune looked down as his lips quirked up into a small smile. "Well, this is my first time dealing with something like this, so it doesn't feel real yet. Grandpa would snap if I kept moping around forever, though, so I'll just have to laugh as I roast him up."

"Phrasing!"

“Jaune!” Pyrrha gasped, also scandalized by his choice of words.

The blond knight had the grace to look sheepish on his alter’s behalf.

Jaune turned to the left, sensing the presence of another individual standing in the shadows of the hallway.

"Jaune Arc, right?" Ren asked. Both Jaune and the nurse looked confused, the former for how this stranger knew him and the latter for his relation with Jaune. "I'm Lie Ren from Jujutsu Tech. I'd like to have a word with you. Now."

Jaune and Ren moved to the waiting area to continue the discussion.

"Um, I'm in mourning right now," Jaune said.

"Sorry, but there isn't time," Ren stated bluntly. "The cursed object you possess is very dangerous. Hand it over to me right now."

“Dude, he just told you he’s in mourning. Have a bit of empathy, will you?” Yang scowled.

"Cursed object?"

Ren lifted his phone, showing Jaune the image of the cursed object. "This."

"Oh, yeah, yeah. I found that," Jaune said. "I don't mind either way, but my senpai took a liking to it." He casually leaned back to rest on a chair. "What do you mean, ‘dangerous’?"

"The number of unexplained deaths and missing persons within Japan exceeds 10,000 a year on average," Ren explained. "Most of those are the result of curses."

“Whoa,” Ruby gasped. “That many?”

“Finally we’re getting some answers about this ‘curse’ business,” Weiss noted after her initial surprise at the high death toll subsided.

"Curses?" Jaune asked, sounding sceptical.

Unfortunately, Ren was in a hurry and did not have time to assuage his doubts and scepticism. "I don't care if you believe in them or not. They're real," he said matter-of-factly. "I'll go on."

"Large pools of negative energy form especially easily in schools, hospitals, and so on. Hardship, regret, shame…The negative emotions of mankind become the source of curses.” Imagery of a swirling pool of inky reddish-black energy appeared on the screen. “That's why most schools secretly keep a cursed object such as a protective talisman. The object you found is one of them."

There was a moment of silence as the group processed this new information.

“Magic?” Weiss’ tone was one of disbelief. “That’s what all this is about?”

“I did not expect that, if I’m being honest,” Yang admitted before her mouth split into a grin. “That’s awesome, though.”

Weiss rounded on Yang, look of disbelief still plastered on her face. “Don’t tell me you actually believe this?”

“We’re watching the lives of alternate versions of ourselves in another universe using the power of an eldritch god and magic is where you draw the line?” Blake arched a brow at the heiress.

Weiss’s mouth opened and closed multiple times but was unable to form a retort.

“Just give up, Weiss.” Nora rolled her eyes. “Now can we keep watching? I wanna see where this all goes!” Her body vibrated in excitement.

“Same here!” Without further ado, Ruby resumed the episode.

Jaune raised a hand, halting Ren's explanation. "If it's protecting us, shouldn't we be grateful for it?"

"Let me finish. Placing an object of greater evil is a deadly poison that keeps other curses away." An analogy of a spider talisman protecting its web from a caterpillar curse is displayed onscreen. "It's a bad practice that only claims to protect. Over the years, its seal weakens, and then it becomes bait to lure in and fatten up other curses." A gang of caterpillar curses now ganged up on the spider.

"The object you found is a dangerous one, classified as special-grade. Hand it over before people start dying."

"Hey, I already said I don't mind that." Jaune fished the box out of his pocket and tossed it at Ren. "So go tell it to my senpai." The transaction now completed, Jaune made to leave while Ren checked its contents.

“What is a ‘senpai’?” Ruby asked. “He’s been saying it since the start of the episode but I can’t figure out what it is.”

“Senpai is a term mostly used in Eastern Mistral. It roughly translates to ‘mentor’ or ‘upperclassman’. It can also be used when referring to someone older than you,” Ren explained. [3]

It's empty? Ren had the box opened in his hands, revealing the empty space where the cursed object was placed. I was just following the taint clinging to the box?!

“How powerful is this cursed object if he didn’t notice he stopped following it?” Pyrrha wondered.

Ren released an empathetic sigh at his counterpart’s terrible luck.

Ren grabbed Jaune by his shoulder. "Where are the contents?!" he demanded, holding up the empty box.

Jaune was now starting to get annoyed by Ren's constant pestering. His grandfather had just died and now he found out ghosts are real. Give a guy time to process it all, damn it! He shrugged the dark-haired boy's hand off his shoulder.

"I already told you, my senpai…have…it…" It slowly dawned on him that he had given away the object to his seniors. The implications of that epiphany were lost on Jaune, not realizing just how much danger Iguchi and Sasaki were in.

"What?" Ren asked, noticing the look on his face.

"Actually, they were talking about removing the talisman from it tonight at the school," Jaune informed him.

Ren was horrified, the realization of the danger they were in dawning on him. Jaune unfortunately didn't get the memo.

"What?" he asked, watching Ren take a few steps back, shock written all over his face. "Is that bad?"

"It's worse than bad." Ren's tone was grim. "They're going to die."

“What?!” The room collectively yelled.

“Let us hope that they haven’t succeeded in removing the talisman, yet,” Pyrrha muttered, biting her lip and trying to still her shaking legs.

[][][]

Back at the now empty school, the other two members of the occult club sat in their club room. A candle was lit on the table in between them, casting a dull glow that barely lit up the room. Sasaki fiddled with the seal, trying to peel it away.

"I can't get it off," she said.

"Did we really need to sneak in to do this?" Iguchi questioned, the nerves getting to him. "I'll turn on the lights."

"No! The atmosphere's important!" Sasaki stopped him, not pausing in her efforts. "Enjoying the thrill is in the spirit of the occult club, isn't it? It's not like anything's going to happen, anyway."

“How are you an occult club that doubts the existence of the supernatural?” Penny was confused.

Weiss waved the question away. “Most people that claim to dabble in the occult don’t actually believe in it, they just do it for the suspense and thrill.”

Penny wasn’t sure she understood what the heiress meant but decided it was probably a normal thing if her new friends weren’t hung up on it.

A part of the seal peeled off.

"Oh, it came off!" Sasaki began carefully and methodically unraveling the seal until it all came off, falling into a bundle on the table. The object inside was revealed to be a clawed finger, that looked brown and mouldy.

The teens grimaced in unison at the ugly sight.

Blake eyed the finger with distaste and a small measure of curiosity “Is it just me or have we seen this finger somewhere else?” she asked.

“It was at the end of the opening theme,” Penny said, recalling seeing a clawed finger in the water.

"A human finger?" Iguchi said in surprise.

"Is it real?" The two were at a loss for what to do.

All of a sudden, the candle’s flame flickered out, drawing shocked gasps from them. They turned back to the finger, now effectively spooked.

"Is this…" Sasaki held up the finger when a large explosion rocked the room, causing her to drop the finger.

Sasaki hastily picked it up, bundling it up with the unraveled seal. "What is this?" They were so preoccupied with staring at the finger that they failed to notice the curse phasing through the ceiling above their heads.

The sudden appearance of the curse jolted some from their positions.

“Crap,” Yang swore.

“Get out of there!” Ruby yelled.

[][][]

On the streets, Jaune and Ren ran to the school.

"Do talismans come off that easily?" Jaune asked.

"No, it's impossible for people who lack cursed energy. Normally."

“Cursed energy?” Nora parroted.

“Explanations will come later,” Pyrrha said, interrupting his train of thought.

"Go right! It's a shortcut." Jaune took the lead, Ren following him.

Hurry! Ruby mentally urged.

"This time the object itself is too strong." Ren continued his explanation. "The seal is ancient. It might as well be plain paper."

"I still don't get all this stuff about curses," Jaune admitted.

"Where are they?" Ren demanded, not in a chatty mood. They had reached the school.

"Fourth floor!"

Jaune was suddenly hit with a wave of pressure, forcing him to halt. "What is this pressure?" he asked. The aura of negativity was so concentrated that it was like a physical barrier.

"You stay here," Ren ordered, moving past him to enter the school premises. He jumped on top of the gate.

"I'm coming, too! It's dangerous, right? I've only known them for a few months, but they're my friends. I can't just stand by!"

Ren could understand why the boy would want to help. Still, he was unwilling to involve an untrained civilian in matters of jujutsu. "Stay here," he ordered again and moved in.

“He can help,” Jaune sulked, unhappy with being sidelined.

“I’m sure it’s nothing personal. My counterpart is trained to handle this sort of thing while yours isn’t,” Ren said, placating his sulky teammate.

In the school, the door to the occult club's classroom was torn apart.

"WhAt TiMe Is It?" a shaky voice, undoubtedly a curse, asked.

Sasaki muffled her fearful whimpers.

“Poor girl,” Blake uttered. She didn’t envy Sasaki and Iguchi’s position one bit.

A monstrous curse with a lumpy human shape and mane wandered the hallways, walking past her hiding place. "ThE hOuR hAnD iS aT eLeVeN."

“Blegh!” Nora grimaced. “That is one ugly motherfu-”

“Language!”

Nora stubbornly stuck her tongue out at Pyrrha.

What is that monster? she thought.

"S-Sasaki…" Iguchi groaned, slowly approaching.

"Iguchi? Thank goodness!" she said in relief. "Where have you--" Her words died in her throat when Iguchi came into the light, revealing another curse clamped around his head, pulling painfully at his mouth.

"Help me…" he pleaded.

“Holy sh*t!”

“Make a run for it!”

Ruby looked incredulously at Nora. “ And abandon her friend?!”

“She might have to if she wants to survive,” Ren said with a grimace.

"WhAt TiMe Is It?" the curse that passed Sasaki earlier reappeared, grabbing her as she screamed in terror.

[][][]

Ren scaled the stairs quickly. The curse has been unleashed. Its presence is still all over the place! He burst out into a hallway and found a curse in his path. It was shaped like a worm with eyeballs all over it.

"SLuRp, SlUrP," it gurgled.

"Out of my way!" He slid to a stop, clasping his hands together and forming the shadow puppet of a dog's head. "Divine Dogs!" Out of his shadows formed a pair of twin wolves. One hound was white while the other was black, and both had three red dots forming a triangle on their foreheads. They growled menacingly at the curse. [4]

“Whoa!”

The room burst into a cacophony of noise and cheers.

“That was badass!” Nora yelled, shaking her best friend/partner enthusiastically. “Is that your other you's Semblance? Or is it a spell anyone can do? Can he summon just dogs or other animals? Oh my God, can he summon a sloth?!”

Ren, with some effort, broke out of Nora’s tight grasp. “Yes, probably. I don’t know, I don’t know, and I don’t know.” As always, Ren answered with the patience of a saint.

Weiss couldn’t help but draw similarities with her family’s ability to summon past foes with Glyphs. “I wonder if it’s similar,” she mused.

Blake was torn between finding the ability badass and backing away from the dogs onscreen. In a moment of fright, she glanced around the room looking for Zwei before she remembered that team CFVY agreed to dog-sit him for the night.

"SlUrP!"

"You can eat it.”

“Eat it?” Jaune gagged.

[][][]

Still waiting outside the school, Jaune stared at the gate. Am I just going to wait here like he told me to? What am I so afraid of?

"They're going to die." Ren's words returned to the forefront of his mind.

That's right. I can sense death all the way out here. I'm afraid of dying. Was I afraid of it then? He remembered the moment his grandfather died. It didn't feel like I was, though. I didn't cry because I was scared. I was just a little sad. But my grandpa's death and the death I'm facing now… How are they any different?

His grandfather's words came back to him. "You're a strong kid, so help others." He was wracked by fright and indecision.

You know what you have to do. You won’t stand for doing nothing when you can do something to help others, Pyrrha thought, confident in her trust in his judgement.

[][][]

Ren ran alongside his Divine Dogs, destroying curses as they came across them.

"The curses are growing in number. They're close." They turned a corner and slid to a halt. The hounds growled at the curse in front of them.

It looked like a collection of curses fused to form a big monstrous abomination. It had Iguchi halfway into one of its mouths while multiple hands fondled and slowly absorbed an unconscious Sasaki for the finger.

The girls gagged, fighting to still their queasy stomachs.

"Found them."

[][][]

Jaune grabbed onto the gate. He was short-tempered and stubborn. No one but me ever paid him a visit. "Don't end up like me," huh? He reminisced on his grandfather's last words. That's true. He steeled his resolve.

[][][]

"Damn it!" Ren cursed. "Is it trying to swallow her along with the cursed object?" Sasaki was slowly being absorbed into the curse with the cursed object still in her possession. "I'm not gonna make it!"

The curse let out a chilling giggle, eyes curling in victory. Before it could eat the students, its eyes widened when it noticed Jaune in the air outside the window, readying a kick.

“What the hell?”

“Did he just leap four stories into the air?” Weiss gaped. Every jaw in the room dropped at the superhuman feat.

He kicked in the window, sending glass shards everywhere, grabbed the sill, and flipped in midair till he was facing the curse below him.

"Arc!" Ren shouted, surprised and concerned.

I think you had a proper death, Grandpa. But… He buried his fist deep within the curse's face, disorienting it and causing it to lose its grip on Sasaki and Iguchi. This death… Jaune took the opportunity to grab them both and leap to safety. …is wrong!

“Pause!” Weiss hit the pause icon before anyone could object. She then took deep breaths to steady her racing thoughts. “Sorry, I’m just trying to process everything that has happened…”

“Other me climbing four stories without using stairs?” Jaune was in just as much disbelief as the Schnee heiress. “It’s…”

“Impossible,” Pyrrha finished with a gasp. The normally reserved champion couldn’t disguise the surprise in her voice. “No ordinary teenager should be capable of anything we’ve seen other Jaune do so far.”

“Maybe he uses cursed energy? Whatever that is,” Nora offered her two cents.

Ren shook his head. “No, other me said he threw the ball without cursed energy, remember?”

“Right.” Blake nodded, thoughts racing with a multitude of ideas and hypotheses. “As far as we can tell, other Jaune has had no encounters with curses or anything related to them. He just learned about their existence this very evening.”

“But that would mean everything he’s done so far is his own strength,” Ruby argued. “Pitching a shot put nearly 30 meters, running at speeds comparable to a car, leaping to extreme heights; no ordinary human can do that!”

“I find it funny how everyone around just accepts that other Jaune is superhuman but don’t try to follow up on why that is,” Yang shook her head in amusem*nt.

Penny chose that moment to butt into the conversation. “We’ve raised tangible points but constantly talking about it won’t get us any closer to the truth. Let us keep watching.”

With a unanimous agreement, they resumed the episode.

Jaune gently placed his seniors in comfortable positions. Iguchi was bleeding from his mouth and nostrils but otherwise appeared to be fine. Jaune cradled Sasaki in his arms, ensuring she was fine before turning back to face the curse.

"So this is a curse? Not what I was expecting."

A wave of pressure hit the curse, blowing it into chunks. Most of it disintegrated with the stragglers being picked up and eaten by the hounds. Ren rounded the corner, comfortable letting his Divine Dogs take care of the rest.

"I want to ask what you're doing here, but good job." Ren complimented him.

"Why so haughty?" Jaune tilted his head to see the dogs behind Ren. "By the way, what's that munching on the curse?"

"My shikigami," he replied. "You can see them, then? Normally a curse can't be seen. Not unless you're on the verge of death and in special places like this."

“Definitely not Grimm,” Weiss noted.

“It’s a bit terrifying that an entire class of monsters exist that the majority of people can’t see,” Jaune commented, a chill running down his spine.

“At least there appears to be a secret organization whose job is tackling such monsters.” Penny allowed herself to wonder if there existed such a cabal in their world.

"Yeah, that makes sense. I've never seen a ghost or anything before tonight."

Ren was taken aback by the boy's casual acceptance of everything. "You're not scared, are you?"

"Well, I was scared for a bit," Jaune admitted. "But did you know? People really can die."

“Yeah, and the sun rises in the east and sets in the west.” Yang’s dry comment elicited chuckles from her friends.

“Huh?”

"So I at least want the people I know to have proper deaths. Not that I really get it myself," he confessed. Rising to his feet with Sasaki in his arms, the cursed object and now useless seal slipped out of her pocket. He caught it before it hit the floor.

"Whoa. This it?"

"Yeah." Ren was relieved that his mission was now complete. "That's the special-grade cursed object, Ryomen Salem's finger. It's a miracle it didn't get swallowed."

Jaune scrutinized the finger. "Why would anything eat it? Does it taste good?"

“…”

Ruby turned to Jaune with a blank stare. “Your counterpart is an idiot, Jaune.”

An imaginary cloud of doom hung over his head at the insult to his counterpart.

"Don't be stupid. You'd do it to gain stronger cursed energy. It's dangerous so hand it over already."

"Sure, sure." Jaune extended the finger to Ren. Unfortunately, more curses were still drawn to the finger. A curse’s hand appeared through the ceiling above Jaune.

“Look out!”

Ren noticed the attack coming and shoved Jaune out of the way. "Run!" he yelled just as the ceiling came crashing down. The force of the explosion threw Jaune with Sasaki still in his arms, backwards. The Divine Dogs dragged Iguchi out of danger.

The large curse from earlier that day appeared from the dust, holding Ren in its grasp.

"Ren!"

Ren clapped his hands together forming a bird shape. "Nue!" he called out.

Unfortunately, the curse gave him no leeway to summon his shikigami. It threw him into a wall with so much force that he spat out blood. The lapse in concentration caused by the pain caused his Divine Dogs to dissipate.

“Ren!” Nora cried out in alarm.

The boy in question squeezed her hand gently. A soft reminder that he was alive and well.

He had barely gotten his bearings before the curse descended upon him. From outside the building, there were three flashes of light before a wide hole was blown in the wall. Dust and debris flew everywhere as Ren landed painfully on the overhead walkway, the curse following right behind him.

Blood dripped down his face as Ren shakily tried to form the necessary hand signs for his technique. "Damn it, I can't think straight."

Just as the curse was about to crush him, Jaune leaped in, throwing a punch to distract the curse.

"Arc! Why can't you understand to take those two and run?!" Ren chided.

"You're in big trouble yourself!" Jaune grabbed onto the curse's arm but it flung him around, dragging his body on the tiles and throwing him into the air.

“Jaune!” Pyrrha called out in worry. Her worries were shared by everyone else.

"Only curses can exorcise other curses! You can't beat it!"

"Is this the time to be saying that?!" He acrobatically dodged the curse's wild attacks. "You're going to die at this rate!" Jaune grabbed an arm and broke it over the railing. Running up the length of its arm, he flipped over its head, grabbing its hair and using the leverage to gouge out one eye with its foot. "If I went home now, I'd be having nightmares! Besides…"

The curse regenerated its eye and moved for Jaune again, forcing him to dodge. "I have my own…" "Help others." "…troublesome curse already!"

He moved out its downward fist that shattered the ground but was unable to dodge the second that had him coughing out blood and flying into the air. Salem's finger slipped from his grasp. On his way down, Jaune was captured by the curse. Noticing the airborne cursed object, he grabbed the finger with his teeth.

“sh*t, sh*t, sh*t, sh*t,” Nora bit down on her nails, foot tapping erratically.

Even Weiss, for all that she would forever deny seeing Jaune as a friend, was visibly worried for him. “Is he crazy?! Don’t bother fighting it! Only curses can exorcise other curses. Just take Ren and run!”

Blake shook her head in disagreement. “He can’t. His upperclassmen are still in the building. What’s stopping other curses from going after them? Even if there aren’t any, they still need medical treatment for their wounds.”

“And there’s the matter of Salem’s finger,” Ren added. “It’s a beacon that’s drawing other curses to it meaning that as long as it is within his possession, curses won’t stop coming after him.”

"You idiot! Hand it over to me or you'll be eaten too!"

Before he fell into the curse’s mouth, Jaune caught himself on the curse’s teeth. The curse grabbed Jaune and tried to force him into its mouth. In this precarious position, Jaune remembered his prior conversation with Ren.

"Why would anything eat it? Does it taste good?"

"Don't be stupid. You'd do it to gain stronger cursed energy."

“He’s not doing what I think he’s about to, right?” Pyrrha stressed.

Jaune turned green as he caught onto the implications of what she meant.

Jaune tossed the finger into the air. "There's a way to save everyone! I just need some cursed energy, right, Ren?!"

Horror dawned on Ren's face when he realized what the boy was about to do. "Don't! Don't do it!" he screamed.

It was all for naught as Jaune ate the finger in one bite.

Ruby, Weiss, and Nora retched while their friends’ faces twisted with horror and disgust.

Ryomen Salem's finger!Ren's expression was one of horror. That's a special-grade cursed object! It's a deadly poison! He'll die for sure! But there’s a one-in-a-million… a one-in-a-million chance…

Jaune limp body sprung to life, blasting off the curse’s arms. Unseen by Ren, two dark bands formed on Jaune's wrists. The curse rushed toward Jaune as he landed but with one flick of his arm, the curse exploded.

“Oh my God!” Weiss and Ruby screamed.

“How did he do that?” Blake gasped, eyes wide open in disbelief.

Ren’s eyes widened.

The clouds moved, allowing the moonlight to reveal Jaune’s new look. His fingers now sported black claws. His face was covered with unique markings on his forehead, nose, and cheeks. A second pair of eyes appeared under his normal eyes, all four with jet-black sclerae and glowingred.

"Fufu… Hahaha… Hahaha… Hahahaha!" The incarnated curse roared with mad laughter. It was worth noting that Jaune's voice sounded intermingled with a feminine one. "Ah, I knew it! The light feels best in the flesh!" She began tearing off Jaune's Pumpkin Pete hoodie.

This is the worst! Ren looked on in horror. A one-in-a-million worst-case outcome! The special-grade cursed object has incarnated!

“f*ck.”

Surprisingly, this came from Pyrrha’s mouth. Unfortunately, everyone was too caught up in the episode to comment on it. Their horror at the realization of what the opening’s visuals meant had finally dawned on them.

With the hoodie fully gone, the teens could see that the markings extended all over Jaune's body. Apart from the unique markings on his face and wrists, he also had two lines on his upper arms, circles on both his shoulders with a dot in each, two-segmented curve lines on his chest, and two lines on his stomach.

"A cursed spirit’s flesh is so boring. Where are the people? The women?!" Salem looked around, grinning maniacally. She stood on the rail of the walkway, arms splayed wide. "What a wonderful era to be in. Women and children are crawling everywhere like maggots. Marvelous! It’ll be a massacre! Hahaha!"

Her celebration was cut short when her hand reached up to grab her chin. She stumbled back from the ledge.

"What do you think you’re doing with my body? Give it back," Jaune said.

Hope welled in their chests. “He can control it?” Ruby asked, her mouth threatening to split into a grin.

“Come on, Jaune! Take your body back from that bitch!” Yang cheered.

"How are you able to move?" Salem asked, surprise evident in her tone.

"I mean, it’s my body."

Salem's eyes widened as the realization hit her. "He’s suppressing me?" The second pair of eyes closed as her consciousness receded. The tattoos hadn’t receded but Jaune was in control once again.

"Don't move," Ren ordered, drawing Jaune's attention. "You're no longer human."

"Huh?"

Ren formed new hand signs, causing his shadows to swirl around him. "Under Jujutsu Regulations, Jaune Arc, I will exorcise you as a curse!"

“What?” was all Jaune could say. “Exorcise me as a curse? What’s that about?”

“And what does he mean by ‘no longer human’? Jaune still looked pretty human to me.” Yang folded her arms. “Extra eyes and claws notwithstanding.”

Blake bit her lip, trying to connect the dots with what little info they had. “I think it has less to do with his physical appearance and more about what is inside him.”

“The special-grade cursed object, Ryomen Salem, right? I still don’t see the connection.”

Weiss pulled a notebook out of nowhere. “Okay, let’s analyze everything we know so far.”

“Curses are the result of the negative emotions of mankind pooling together, especially in schools and hospitals,” Penny stated.

Nora stuffed her mouth with more snacks. “They can’t be seen by normal people, except in extreme circ*mstances, usually involving death.”

“However,” Ren interjected to add to her point, “there exists those who can harness cursed energy, which we don’t have a concrete explanation for, to exorcise curses. They can naturally see and interact with curses.”

“Which brings us to the last scene in the episode. Ren threatening to exorcise Jaune as a curse.” Pyrrha’s brows furrowed in thought. “Assuming exorcise in this context means killing curses, that means…”

“He’s going to kill me,” Jaune finished with a frown. The atmosphere in the room noticeably plummeted

“Other Ren also said something. He said the special-grade cursed object had incarnated? What’s up with that?” Ruby asked.

“It means it is now embodied in human form,” Weiss replied, tapping the pen on her chin and skimming through her notes. “I think the finger contained the consciousness of a powerful curse which has now been resurrected in Arc’s body.”

Nora leaned over to look at Weiss’s notes. “I don’t get it, though. If the curse is so dangerous, why don’t they exorcise it as a finger? Why seal it away? In fact, why doesn’t the finger disintegrate like the other curses after they’re killed?”

“Disintegrate?”

“Yeah. You didn’t notice?” Jaune shook his head in negative. “After alternate-you got possessed and destroyed the curse, it slowly turned to dust. Like the Grimm.”

Ruby rewound to the last few minutes of the episode.

“See the dust coming off of it?” Nora pointed out. Fast forwarding by a few seconds, she pointed at the now empty space where the carcass used to be. “It’s not there anymore.”

“Huh,” was all Yang said. “You make a good point. What makes this cursed object different from others?”

“It probably has to do with why it is called a special-grade cursed object,” Penny said. “Ren classified the field curse as a Grade 2, implying that there is a grading system to curses or curse-related objects.” The android snatched the notebook out of Weiss’s hand, much to her chagrin, to add her own notes.

“We have no knowledge of how the grading system works; it could be based on size, intelligence, or level of cursed energy. Maybe even a combination of all these factors. But the cursed object is classified as special-grade ; by definition, it is better, greater, or otherwise different from normal curse-related matters.”

They realized where she was going with this. Blake was the first to comment.

“You’re suggesting that the curse was too powerful to be destroyed. Which is why it had to be sealed away.”

“Precisely.”

“That’s…a pretty good idea. Way to go, Penny!” Penny beamed as Ruby pulled her in for a congratulatory side hug.

While Penny and Ruby hugged it out, with Yang jumping in to join them, Weiss retrieved her notebook.

“That explains a lot. Like why Arc is scheduled for an execution.”

Jaune winced at the reminder. “Yeah. That sucks.” Pyrrha stroked his hand softly to console him.

“And why Miss Gojo asked Jaune which one he was when he woke up. Himself or Salem,” Blake added.

“Oh, I wonder when Mom will show up?” Ruby bounced excitedly in her seat. “I can’t wait!”

“Let’s start the next episode, shall we?” Ren said.

Weiss clicked on the next video and the episode played.

Chapter 3: For Myself

Chapter Text

The episode picked up where it left off. Ren clasped his hand together, forming new hand signs as his shadows swirled around him. “Under Jujutsu Regulations, Jaune Arc, I will exorcise you as a curse!”

“Please don’t,” begged Jaune.

Jaune stared at him, momentarily confused before it registered that Ren might actually try attacking him.

“Wait, really, I’m just fine!” He raised his arms in surrender as the tattoos vanished. “More importantly, you and I are both pretty beat up. Let’s get to a hospital.”

They sighed in relief when the tattoos fully receded.

“At least Jaune seems to have some measure of control over Salem,” Blake commented.

“But how much?” Weiss’ question was one they hadn’t thought of yet. Jaune might be in control at the moment, but how long would that last?

Ruby shook off her negative thoughts. “No way Jaune will let some evil cursed creep get the better of him. I know he can do it!”

“Yeah!” Nora agreed.

Jaune smiled, a comforting warmth bubbling in his chest at their unwavering faith in his counterpart.

Ren grit his teeth. Indecision and frustration welled up inside of him. I can’t tell if the one speaking right now is Arc or the cursed object… Damn it! What should I do?!

“The tattoos are gone. What more confirmation do you need?” Yang asked with a quirked eyebrow.

“He’s not wrong for being cautious. A clearly dangerous foe, one who couldn’t be destroyed, has incarnated in Jaune’s body. For all he knows, it could be trying to lure him into a false sense of security,” said Ren, coming to his counterpart’s defense.

Blake nodded. “It never hurts to be careful.”

“What’s the situation?” a familiar voice cut in.

Ruby and Yang sat up in an instant.

Ren jolted in surprise, the lapse in concentration disrupting his technique. He turned to notice Summer Gojo standing behind him.

“Mom!” the sisters cheered.

Their friends smiled at the sisters’ exuberance upon seeing their mother. The ones who were aware of their history, like Blake, were glad that their friends were given this chance to see their mother. Sure, she might not be their actual mother but it was the next best thing.

“Gojo-sensei?! Why are you here?”

“To help you, obviously.”

“And hopefully stop him from killing me. For now, at least.” Jaune added.

“Hey!” She waved. “I wasn’t planning on coming, but man, you’re roughed up. I should show the second-years.” Gojo pulled out her phone and began obnoxiously taking pictures of Ren’s roughed up state, much to his ire and chagrin.

He lifted his arm to hide from the camera but Gojo kept taking more pictures, laughing childishly as she did so. “Face this way.”

Ruby, Yang, Nora, and Jaune laughed at Gojo’s actions while the Ren groaned in second-hand embarrassment.

Weiss stared in confusion at the older woman’s antics. “Is your mother like that?”

Yang’s eyes softened as old memories dredged up to the surface of her mind. “In a way. She wasn’t this…energetic, for lack of a better word, but there was hardly ever a dull moment whenever she was around.”

Jaune stared dumbly at the strange newcomer.

“The higher-ups wouldn’t shut up with a special-grade cursed object gone missing. So I stopped by while doing some sightseeing. So, did you find it?” she asked.

Ren suddenly found the ground interesting to look at. Jaune chose that moment to speak up. “Um…” he began, drawing her attention to him.

“Sorry, but I ate it,” he finished, looking sheepish.

Gojo stared at him for a moment, trying to process whether she just heard him right. “For real?”

“For real.” The boys replied in unison.

“I still can’t believe he did that,” said Weiss with a shudder. While she was never Arc’s biggest supporter (no surprises there, what with his obnoxious attempts to ask her out), she knew his heart was in the right place. Pyrrha wouldn’t have fallen so hard for him otherwise.

At the moment, however, she had to question his sanity. And Pyrrha’s taste in men. Eating a finger? One that had been around for Brothers know how long, and looked rotten, too?

“Trust me, I’m just as disgusted as you are,” Jaune muttered, suppressing his own shudder.

Gojo hummed, walking closer to Jaune to inspect him. Jaune was taken aback by her extreme closeness but didn’t move away from her scrutinizing gaze (he assumed she was staring at him but it was hard to tell with the blindfold).

“How does she see with the blindfold?” Jaune asked.

Ren shrugged. “Maybe she has sensitive eyes?”

“Oh, I bet she has super-duper powerful eyes that make her this super strong person!” Nora declared. She was ignored.

She laughed and moved even closer to the boy. They were practically nose-to-nose. “Damn, it really did combine with you. That’s hilarious.”

“How can she tell?” Blake wondered.

Pyrrha would have answered but she had other priorities on her mind. Why is she so close? she thought. If Jaune hadn’t moved back in surprise, there would have been less than an inch worth of space between them. Not that she voiced those thoughts, lest Ruby and Yang take offense.

She backed off but wasn’t done with her interrogation. “Anything off with your body?”

“Not particularly.”

“Can you swap out with Salem?”

“Salem?” The name sounded familiar but Jaune couldn’t place where he’d heard it.

“The curse you ate.”

Oh, now he remembered. Ren told him right before the field curse attacked; in the chaos that followed, he must have forgotten. “Oh…Yeah, I think I can do that.”

“Then give us ten seconds.” Gojo dropped into a crouch, doing some stretches. “Once ten seconds are up, come back to us.”

“Whoa, hold on,” said Yang, straightening up from her reclining position. “She’s not about to do what I think she is, right?”

“Fight the special-grade cursed object? She most definitely is,” was Blake’s reply.

“But…” Jaune hesitated, worry evident in his voice. He didn’t know this woman so he had no idea whether or not she could handle what she was asking for.

Gojo smirked confidently. “Don’t worry, I’m the strongest.”

“She seems awfully confident of herself,” was all Blake could say without outright calling her friends’ mother arrogant.

Weiss chose to withhold her comment, unsure of whether Gojo’s confidence stemmed from arrogance or she really was that sure of her strength.

A side-glance at her friends revealed that Ruby, Yang, Nora, and Jaune were enthusiastic about watching the fight. Only Pyrrha and Ren looked wary at the thought of releasing Salem.

I guess we’ll find out soon enough, she thought, eyes returning to the screen.

“Ren, hold on to this.” She tossed her dessert bag over to Ren.

“What is it?” he asked.

“Kikuf*cku from Kikusuian. It’s Sendai’s specialty, and it’s super good. I recommend the zunda and cream flavor.”

“Sounds yummy. Do you think we have that in our world?”

Penny’s response dashed the reaper’s hopes. “No. I have looked through every known dessert shop on the internet and none have what Miss Gojo is describing.”

While Ruby sulked, a miniature storm cloud hanging over her head, Blake looked perplexed at the android. “You’ve looked through every store that sells desserts on Remnant? How?”

Penny froze at the inquiry. In her haste to respond, she forgot that Ruby was the only one that was aware of her synthetic nature, and had made quick use of her connection to the internet to look up whether or not the dessert existed.

Ruby came out her funk, sensing her friend’s distress. “Penny was just very c-curious…” she stuttered as she struggled to think of the perfect excuse for her friend. “Yes, curious! About the various d-desserts we have all over Remnant! So she hooked up- sorry, I mean looked up each and every one of them!”

“Y-Yes, friend Ruby is (hic!) right!” Penny stammered.

The rest of the teens stared at them disbelievingly. Before Blake could make another comment, Weiss resumed the episode.

This lady actually went and bought souvenirs! Ren imagined a chibi Gojo excitedly buying the desserts. When people were out here dying!

Nora snickered. “Is that how you imagine things, Renny?”

Ren’s ears tinged red. “Maybe…” he muttered, much to his teammates’ amusem*nt.

“It’s not a souvenir,” Gojo corrected him, as if having read his mind. “I’m going to eat it on the bullet train home.”

With a deep breath, Jaune swapped out with Salem, the tattoos reappearing once more. She launched into the air behind Gojo, red eyes glowing ominously in the darkness.

“Look out!” Ruby yelled, forgetting that she couldn’t be heard through the screen.

“Behind you!” Ren shouted.

“Kikif*cku’s not like other souvenirs…” Gojo continued, unconcerned with the hostile curse aiming for her.

Salem came down on Gojo with a loud crash, kicking up a cloud of dust upon impact. Ren closed his eyes to brace for the impact. He reopened his eyes and gasped upon coming face-to-face with Salem.

The sudden appearance of Salem’s face gave them a jump scare.

The curse was on her knees in front of Ren, being used as a stool by Gojo.

“And the whipped cream inside is simply exquisite…” Gojo prattled on, as if the curse beneath her wasn’t a threat.

Reactions to the blatant disrespect shown onscreen varied.

Some gaped at the sight of the monster being used as a chair. Others looked close to bursting into cheers or laughter at the sight.

The fact that Gojo kept talking about food as if the curse beneath her didn’t matter was the icing on the cake.

Salem pushed Gojo off, claws raised to cut her down with an expression of raw delight on her face at what was about to be an entertaining fight.

Gojo clasped her hands together and teleported away, avoiding Salem’s relentless assault.

The teens stared in awe at the ease with which Gojo dodged the curse’s dogged attacks.

“She’s fast,” muttered Pyrrha, staring in amazement. Or is it speed? She remembered other-Ren’s ability to summon creatures from shadows and wondered whether Gojo’s speed was a result of a special ability.

After dodging a few more attacks, she came back to back with Salem, leaning back to whisper into the curse’s ear. “My student’s watching, so I’m going to show off a little.”

Nora and Ruby were seconds away from bursting into screams.

Salem attempted to elbow Gojo but she deftly dodged the hit. Moving behind the curse to grab her arm, Gojo pulled Salem close to smash her face, scoring a hit. The force of the blow was enough to send Salem spinning like a ballerina in midair.

“Whoa,” Jaune gasped.

They stared in wide-eyed amazement at the ease and fluidity with which she not only moved but also struck the curse.

“Other Mom can really move,” Yang whistled, highly impressed.

Salem eyed her opponent with a pensive and curious look. She’s unbelievably fast? No, that’s not it… Her thoughts were interrupted when Gojo struck the air between them with cursed energy, throwing her back along with debris.

Pyrrha straightened up and squinted at the screen. “Wait, what was that?”

“What was what?” Ruby asked.

“What she just did. How was Salem pushed back?”

Nora leveled the Mistral champion with an odd look. “Because Gojo hit her?”

“Except she didn’t.” Pyrrha shuffled closer to the keyboard and rewound it to just before Gojo landed the first hit on Salem. They watched again as the curse was sent spinning midair before Gojo threw her second punch, sending the curse flying. Pyrrha instantly paused. “There! Right there. Did you see what she did?”

“No, not really…” Yang scratched her head, confused.

“I did,” Penny piped up. She rewound the fight again. “It happened so fast that it is easy to miss. At first glance, it looks like Miss Gojo hit Ryomen Salem directly but if you look closely…” She paused just as Gojo’s fist swung. “…she actually struck the air between them.”

The rest stared at the still frame, now seeing what Pyrrha and Penny noticed in that brief second.

“Maybe it has to do with her Semblance?” said Ren. “Or whatever they call it in their world. Some form of telekinesis, maybe.”

“Maybe that’s why she’s so fast, too.” Pyrrha’s comment turned heads again causing her to explain.

“It was just a random thought I had when I saw Miss Gojo dodging all of Salem’s attacks. At first, I thought she was simply that fast but then I wondered why she clasped her hands together before she moved.” She paused to take a breath and organize her thoughts. “Then we heard Salem’s thoughts: ‘She’s unbelievably fast? No, that’s not it’, right before Miss Gojo hit her, or rather hit the space between them. Ren’s proposal that it might have been the result of a Semblance was the final nail in the coffin for me.”

She chuckled nervously at the end of her theory. “Of course, I could be wrong and I’m simply reading into what isn’t there.”

“It’s a solid hypothesis with the little knowledge we have at the moment,” said Weiss, idly tossing a popcorn into her mouth. “I wonder—”

Whatever she was about to say was halted by Ruby’s raised hand. “Guys, I know we wanna talk about this but we have more episodes to watch right now.”

“She’s right,” said Blake, stretching like a cat in her bundle of pillows and blanket. “We only have so long to finish this. And I know it’s not a school night but I’d still appreciate us not spending forever here.”

The rest nodded and Ruby resumed the episode.

Salem caught the rail to halt her flight, grinning like a maniac. “For crying out loud…You jujutsu sorcerers are always trouble.” She sprinted toward Gojo, fist covered in black cursed energy. “No matter what the era!”

She leaped the last few feet before punching the air, pulling the same move Gojo just used. The force from the blow was enough to carve a trench into the walkway and create a massive hole through the school building behind Gojo and Ren.

“Though that doesn’t mean much to me.” She paused in her speech, eyes widening when the dust cleared to reveal Gojo standing calmly with debris levitating around her.

Ruby and Yang let out a relieved sigh that they didn’t know they were holding.

Gojo’s smirked smugly at the curse’s bewildered expression. “Seven…Eight…Nine…” Behind her, Ren sighed in relief that he survived the encounter. “Should be time.”

Right at the end of her count, Salem felt her host’s heart throb painfully. Damn it…Again? I can’t take over. Her eyes closed as she felt her consciousness receding, markings too. Who the hell is this…Arc…brat?

“He’s our fearless leader, that’s who!” said Nora, lightly punching his arm. Of course, their definitions of a ‘light punch’ differed and Jaune visibly winced and gripped the sore spot.

Weiss smiled—although she tried to hide it—upon seeing Jaune successfully retake his body. She may have found his constant attempts to ask her out grating but she didn’t hate him so much as to wish he would forever be possessed by some demonic entity. No matter the universe.

Jaune’s body slumped in place for a few seconds before he awoke as himself. “Oh, was everything okay?”

“I’m shocked.” Gojo let the debris drop. “You really can control it.”

“She’s kind of annoying, though,” Jaune griped, smacking his head in frustration. “I can hear her voice.”

“It’s a miracle that’s all she’s doing.” She walked over to Jaune and tapped his forehead with her fingers. The effect was instantaneous as Jaune slumped unconscious into her arms.

“What did you do/What did she do?” Ren asked at the same time as Pyrrha did.

“Knocked him out,” she replied, cradling the sleeping teen. “If he isn’t possessed by Salem when he wakes up, he might have potential as a vessel.”

“Ehn? Vessel?” parroted Jaune, now even more confused.

“Just keep watching. I’m sure we’ll find out soon enough,” said Pyrrha with a sympathetic shoulder pat.

“Now, I have a question for you. What should we do with him?”

Ren looked down, mulling over the question. It was a pretty straightforward question with only one answer for a jujutsu sorcerer: execution. There was too much risk involved with letting the vessel of Salem live.

However, they didn’t see what Ren saw. When he looked at the Jaune’s sleeping form, Ren saw more than just a dangerous vessel; he saw a kind-hearted boy who was willing to above and beyond to save someone he just met, even at the risk of dying.

“Even if he is a vessel, jujutsu regulations demand Arc be executed. However…” He looked up at his teacher, his expression conveying the earnestness of his words. “I don’t want to let him die.”

“Ren…” Jaune smiled at the only other boy in the room. Ren returned the smile with a warm one of his own.

Gojo smiled. “Your personal feelings?”

“Yes. Please do something about this.”

She chuckled, picking Jaune up and laying him over her shoulder. “Now it’s a request from a precious student.” She gave him a thumbs up. “Leave it to me!”

The screen glitched, returning to the talisman room with Jaune and Gojo in it.

“With that, allow me to say it once more. You’re being executed.” Her second delivery of the news was just as casual as the first time, with finger guns pointed at him.

They were momentarily stunned by the sudden glitch and change in scene but easily remembered the first scene.

“It all comes full circle,” said Nora in a sage-like voice.

“No, it doesn’t!” Jaune was not having it. His reaction mirrored the pale face his tied-up counterpart had. “Her recap doesn’t line up with current events!”

His counterpart said as much.

“The recap and current events don’t line up, though.”

“Hey, I did my best,” she said. “The execution’s still on but I got your sentence suspended.”

“Suspended?” Jaune repeated. “So you’re not killing me right away?”

“Yup.” Gojo dug out another finger, similar to the one Jaune consumed, from her pocket. “I’ll explain from the top,” she said, holding it up. “This is the same as the cursed object you ate. There are twenty in total. We possess six of them.”

“Twenty? Oh, each finger and toe?”

“No, Salem has four arms.”

The teens (bar Penny) looked grossed out by the sight of another finger. That disgust turned to shock at the knowledge that more fingers like it existed. And that the curse apparently has, or had, four arms.

“Oh, my God,” gasped Weiss. “Please tell me this isn’t going to be about Arc tracking down and eating every finger.”

“Now you’ve jinxed it,” Yang groaned, smacking her face at Weiss’s question.

Jaune looked positively green. “As gross as that sounds, I’m more concerned with my suspended execution.”

She tossed it up and just as it came down, blasted it into the wall with cursed energy. Rather than get crushed by the force, the finger embedded itself into the wall, forming a deep crater and burning the talismans.

Jaune stared at the wall in shock.

“Holy sh*t!”

“Nora!” Pyrrha chastised. Her teammate responded by blowing a raspberry.

“As you can see, we can’t destroy them.” Gojo retrieved the finger from its burnt crater. “The curse is just that powerful. The curse grows stronger by the day, and the seals of modern-day jujutsu sorcerers can’t keep up.”

The teens nodded as the older woman confirmed everything they’d speculated.

Gojo then pointed at Jaune. “That’s where you come in.”

“Huh?”

“When you die, the curse inside you will die, as well.” An image of Jaune standing with Salem’s soul attached to him cropped up on the screen.

“No…” Ren rasped, expression slowly morphing into one of horror as the realization dawned on him. Blake and Pyrrha looked like they had come to the same realization as well if the way the latter gripped Jaune’s hand tightly was any indication.

“Just…keep watching. It will be explained soon. I think,” muttered Blake when she noticed her teammates’ questioning looks.

“Our elders are cowards, you know,” Gojo continued. “They’re demanding we kill you right away. But that would be a waste wouldn’t it?”

“A waste?”

“There’s no guarantee another vessel capable of handling Salem will ever be born again. So this is what I proposed: If we’re going to kill you anyway, why not kill you after you’ve absorbed all of Salem? The higher-ups agreed.”

“WHAT?!” Mount Nora erupted, her booming voice reaching a crescendo that would have shook the building were it not for the domain they were trapped in (not that they were aware of it).

“That’s horrible!” Weiss gasped, aghast.

Ruby and Yang looked horrified at the ease with which Summer proposed Jaune’s potential execution. Realistically, they knew Gojo was not their mother. She was an alternate universe copy with similar looks and first name to their mother. That didn’t take away from the disturbance they felt at how…detached she sounded as she delivered this disturbing news.

The horrifying realization of his circ*mstances began to kick in as Jaune stared at the jujutsu sorcerer with growing trepidation.

“So now you have two options before you. You can die right now, or you can find all the parts of Salem and die after you’ve absorbed them.”

The group could only stare in shock as the opening played on without a care that one of their own had an execution hanging over his head.

“Well, that was…” Jaune started, gulping and wringing his hands, one of which was still intertwined with Pyrrha’s, together. “…something,” he finished with a shaky breath.

No one blamed him for his nervousness. How did one even begin broaching the topic of their eventual execution? An alternate universe, true, but the fact that it existed somewhere out there was disturbing in and of itself.

“How can they do that?” Ruby muttered to no one in particular. Aside from his teammates, she was taking it the hardest out of team RWBY for two reasons:

Jaune was her second best friend and first friend at Beacon. They bonded over their shared awkwardness and fish-out-of-water personalities on their first day. He was clumsy at times and a bad flirt all the time, but he had a good heart. He was a shoulder to lean on just as she was his during hard times. And to find out he was marked for death? The thought sent a chill down her spine.

The second reason was the person who delivered the bad news: Summer Gojo. Going into the show and seeing her deceased mother’s counterpart, Ruby had expected that the rosy image she had of her mother, painted by Yang and Taiyang’s stories, would coincide with the Summer onscreen. To say she was proven wrong was an understatement. In her mind, the contrast between Summer Rose the Huntress and Summer Gojo the Jujutsu Sorcerer was so jarring that it hurt. [1]

“Because they don’t see him as human,” responded Penny, pulling Ruby from her thoughts. “Due to the high risk the special-grade cursed object poses and the fact that it has now been incarnated in Friend Jaune, in their eyes he is just as bad as the cursed object.”

“Tch. f*cking bastards,” Nora growled, teeth grit in anger.

No one said anything else as the opening ended.

[][][]

Episode 2: For Myself

At Sugisawa Hospital, Sasaki sat by Iguchi’s bedside staring despondently at the ground. A knock on the door interrupted her thoughts, causing her to look up and see Jaune standing at the door. “Arc,” she greeted.

“How’s Iguchi-senpai doing?” he asked, stepping into the room.

They stared at Iguchi’s prone form on the hospital bed. He was wrapped in bandages and hooked up to an IV.

Jaune sighed in relief. “I’m glad that they both made it.”

“The doctors say he’s fine, but he hasn’t regained consciousness.” The feelings of guilt had become overwhelming now as tears welled up in her eyes. “It’s all my fault. If I hadn’t asked him to come to the school that night…”

Sasaki looked down as tears fell. “I know you won’t believe this, but this weird monster attacked us, and I was captured, too.”

“I believe you. Those weren’t monsters. They were curses,” he informed her.

She looked at him in surprise and slight confusion.

Jaune continued his explanation. “That finger was a special-grade cursed object. It had the power to draw other curses to it and make them stronger. So it wasn’t your fault.” His grip on the bed frame tightened. “It was mine for picking it up.”

“It’s not his fault, either,” said Yang sympathetically. “He couldn’t have known how dangerous it was.”

“Should he be telling her this? I thought knowledge of curses was meant to be a secret?” Weiss questioned.

Blake shrugged. “Closure, I guess. Better than having her go the rest of her life living in fear or thinking she’s insane.”

Sasaki stared at him, still at a loss for words.

“Sorry. It’ll be all right, though,” he assured her. “Someone capable of fixing Iguchi-senpai will be here tomorrow.”

“Arc?”

“Sorry, Senpai. There’s somewhere I need to go.” Jaune started to walk out. Sasaki stood up to go after him but indecision kept her rooted in place.

“Bye-bye,” he waved, giving her one last sad smile before walking off.

“He’s never gonna see them again, is he?” asked Ruby with a sad sigh.

“Not likely, no,” replied Jaune.

[][][]

“Who passed away?” Gojo asked. Herself and Jaune sat outside the crematorium where the latter’s grandfather’s body was being cremated.

“My grandpa. Although he was like a father to me,” he replied.

“He doesn’t even get a chance to mourn his grandfather,” Pyrrha said somberly.

“I see. Sorry it happened at a time like that.” There was a moment of silence before Gojo continued. “So have you decided what you want to do?”

“Come on, lady! Give him a break. He’s grieving here!” Nora complained.

Jaune thought about his answer for a moment. “Are casualties like these from curses pretty common?” He had to know what he was getting himself into, at the very least.

“This one was a rather exceptional case, but in terms of the damage, it happens all the time,” Gojo said. “It’s a good night when someone dies a normal death after encountering a curse. Finding a body that’s all torn apart is on the better end of the outcomes.”

Jaune had a horrified look on his face.

Their looks mirrored that of alternate Jaune’s, especially when the screen showed an example of a body torn apart by a curse.

“That is on the better end of curse encounters?” asked Yang, aghast.

“For jujutsu sorcerers, yeah,” Blake responded, looking as disturbed as her blonde partner.

It made them wonder what their future careers as Huntsmen and Huntresses would be like. Realistically, they knew that they would see some terrible things on the job (some already had) and the implications of that had their stomachs churning in discomfort.

“If you plan to hunt down Salem, you’re going to witness some gruesome scenes, and I can’t guarantee you won’t end up that way yourself. So choose your hell.”

Jaune looked down, remembering everything Ren went through to protect him. His mind also flashed to his senpai, Iguchi lying comatose, and Sasaki’s tears.

“You’re a strong kid, so help others.”

Jaune clenched his fists, standing over his grandfather’s ashes on the table. He picked up the nearby chopsticks, packing the ashes into an urn while Gojo watched.

“If all the parts of Salem were gone, would there be fewer people who get harmed by curses?” Jaune asked.

Pyrrha couldn’t help the small smile that appeared on her face. “Always thinking of others first, Jaune.”

Jaune nudged her shoulder playfully at her comment.

Gojo smiled at his thoughtful question. “Of course.”

Jaune put down the chopsticks and closed the metal urn, now done packing the ashes. He stared down at it for a few seconds, contemplating his decision, before looking over at the older woman.

“Do you still have that finger?”

Gojo wordlessly handed him the finger before stepping back.

Jaune looked at the finger in revulsion. “Looking at it again, it’s pretty disgusting.” He tossed it into his mouth, grimacing as he swallowed it.

Weiss grimaced at the sight. “At least your counterpart isn’t so far gone up in the head.”

“Honestly, I still say he’s very crazy to be doing this,” Yang interjected with a slight shudder. “Who just eats a finger and calls it a day?”

“That’s harsh, guys,” said Jaune, burying himself deeper in his blankets as more unanimous agreements rang out from his friends.

Well, that’s the second one. One-tenth of the whole. What’s going to happen? Gojo stared in anticipation.

Jaune stood still. Salem’s tattooed markings reappeared and immediately after, her cursed energy surged. Jaune clutched his throat with a painful groan, causing Gojo to ready herself for a fight.

The students panicked upon seeing that, hoping that Jaune would gain control and avoid another fight with Summer.

“Come on, you can do it Jaune!” Ruby said not-too-quietly. Her sentiments were shared by everyone.

“Suppress that bitch!” Pyrrha was too wound up about a potential fight between Salem and Gojo to correct Nora’s language.

Still clutching his throat in pain, Jaune moved forward, swaying slightly, before leaning on a wall and gagging. He let out a chuckle that turned into full-blown laughter as he straightened up. “Gross! So gross it’s funny!”

They all breathed relieved sighs, even chuckling at his reaction to the finger’s taste.

“I wonder what the fingers taste like,” said Ruby, rubbing her chin in thought.

“Probably tastes like a bar of soap or something.” Ren shrugged nonchalantly, reaching for the almost empty bowl of popcorn.

Gojo grinned. That settles it. It’s not just a physical tolerance. He can control himself against Salem without issue. We haven’t seen someone with talent like that in a thousand years .

“A thousand years?” Weiss gawked.

Blake co*cked her head in confusion. “Does this mean there have been other hosts of Salem?”

“I doubt it,” Yang replied. “If the whole deal is that Salem’s soul dies with her host, there should be a lot less than twenty fingers existing at the moment.”

Penny added her own comments. “Don’t forget that the fingers are supposed to be a deadly poison. There have probably been attempts in the past to seal Ryomen Salem into people that ended in failure.”

“So he’s the first successful attempt at not only sealing her but in suppressing her power,” said Jaune. He grinned in pride at his counterpart’s accomplishment.

Jaune noticed the look she was giving him. “Something wrong?”

“Oh, it’s nothing. I take it this means you’ve steeled your resolve?”

“Not at all.” Jaune reached up to rub the back of his head. “I’m still wondering why I have to be executed. But I can’t just do nothing about the curse.” His eyes fell on the photo of his grandfather. “That last request is gonna be a pain in my ass.” The last part was said mostly to himself.

“I’ll eat every part of Salem. I don’t care what happens from there. I’ve already decided how I’m going to die.”

“Not like you had much of a choice in the first place,” Blake murmured.

Gojo’s mouth stretched into a wide grin. “Nice! I like people like you. Sounds like a fun hell awaits. Make sure you’re packed by the end of the day.” She pressed a button on the wall opening up the door.

“We going somewhere?”

The door slid open to reveal Ren covered in bandages. “Tokyo,” he answered.

Nora snapped a quick picture on her scroll.

“At least he’s okay,” said Pyrrha with a sigh. She briefly wondered how their other counterparts were doing in this world. She didn’t see herself in the opening and couldn’t help wondering whether she existed at all.

Or maybe I have no connection to the world of jujutsu sorcery, she thought.

“Ren! You’re looking good!” Jaune cheered, giving him a thumbs up.

“He is a few bandages away from cosplaying as a mummy and that looks good to you?” asked Weiss, eyeing Jaune with a disbelieving frown.

Jaune chuckled nervously.

“You think so after seeing this?” the shadow user deadpanned, pointing at his bandages. “You’re going to transfer to the same school for jujutsu sorcerers I attend.”

“Huh?”

An aerial view of a broad campus of several buildings built in traditional Japanese architectural style came up on the screen.

“Tokyo Metropolitan Jujutsu Technical High School,” Gojo informed him.

“That’s a mouthful,” said Blake.

“That’s what she s—” Yang’s comment was cut off by Ruby shoving a handful of chips into her sister’s mouth.

Gojo held up three fingers. “By the way, you’re the third first-year.”

“Only three?!” Jaune yelled in surprise.

“That’s way too small!” Pyrrha gaped, bits of chips dropping from her mouth.

“But, how can that be possible? We saw ourselves in the opening so clearly, some of us exist in this world,” said Weiss. “How can there be only three first-years?”

Ruby’s eyes widened when she was hit with an epiphany. “Guys, what if we aren’t all the same age in that world?”

“We already aren’t the same age,” Weiss retorted, fixing a pointed look at her partner and causing her to pout.

“I believe the point Friend Ruby is trying to make is that yo–sorry, we may have been born around separate times.” Penny was glad that no one noticed her slip up. “Some may be older, others younger. Some of us may not exist at all!”

They looked disturbed at the orange-haired girl.

“Thank you, Penny, for that disconcerting thought,” Blake muttered.

“You’re welcome, Friend Blake!”

Ruby shook her head in amusem*nt at Penny’s obliviousness to basic social cues.

Jaune idly scratched his head as he thought. “I wonder who the third first-year is going to be?”

“It’s Nora.” Once again, her friends were surprised by the speed of her answer.

Blake’s ears tinged red at being the center of attention again. “It’s mostly guesswork and assumptions. All I have to go off of is that she was the third person to show up in the opening. If she’s going to be part of the main trio, it makes sense that she’d be shown early on.”

Nora smirked smugly at the idea of being part of the main trio of the show.

“That’s not a solid basis.” Weiss scoffed in clear dismissal. “Why not your counterpart who shows up after Nora? Or mine?”

“Like I said, it’s just guesswork and assumptions,” Blake said with a shrug.

“Well, we know it’s definitely not me. I didn’t make it into the opening at all.” A dark cloud hung over Ruby’s head as she pouted.

Yang awkwardly rubbed her sister’s back to console her. Not that she didn’t share her sister’s sentiments, having not seen herself in the opening, too. [2]

[][][]

Jaune knelt in front of his grandfather’s grave, hands clasped together in prayer. He stood up after he was done.

“Okay, I’m heading out, Grandpa.” He walked away.

[][][]

The scene switched to Jaune and Gojo trekking a paved mountainside pathway surrounded by lush green trees.

“This is really deep in the mountains! Is this actually Tokyo?” Jaune asked.

“Even Tokyo’s like this on the outskirts.”

“Where’s Ren?”

“He’s been treated by a sorcerer, and now he’s fast asleep.”

Ren was shown asleep on his bed.

“Tokyo Metropolitan Jujutsu Technical High School. It’s one of only two jujutsu educational facilities,” Gojo explained. “On the surface, it’s known as a private religious school. Many jujutsu sorcerers continue to use it as a base after graduation, so it’s a pillar of the jujutsu community not just in education, but for support and mediation in missions.”

“There are only two jujutsu schools? In the entire world or just this Japan kingdom?” Pyrrha wondered. [3]

“It’s probably in Japan. Curses are a worldwide phenomenon; it wouldn’t make sense for there to exist only two jujutsu educational facilities in the entire world,” said Ren.

“So it’s like the Huntsman academies. If the Huntsman academies were made secret and fronted as a private school for elite students,” Nora added.

Jaune let out a small laugh. “I wonder what the world would be like if the Grimm, Aura, and Huntsmen weren’t common knowledge.”

“Oh, it’d be like those movies or TV shows where the main character gets a hidden letter within their admission letter.” Ruby cleared her throat before tilting her head up, channeling her inner Weiss: “Mr. Arc, we are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted into the Beacon Academy for Grimm hunting. In addition, we are pleased to inform you that you will be receiving full scholarship allowance. Please accept our congratulations for your outstanding achievement.”

The teens burst into laughter at Ruby’s impersonation.

The two ascended a flight of stairs.

“Anyway, you’re about to have a conversation with the principal.”

“The principal?” Jaune questioned.

“Screw it up and he could reject your admission, so go all out.”

That threw Jaune for a loop. “Huh?!” He thought his admission here was all but guaranteed! “And what then? Immediate execution?!” he asked with a panicked expression.

“What? So you’re not the boss?”

The sudden interjection of Salem’s voice threw them for a loop.

“The f*ck?!” As usual, Yang ignored Pyrrha’s reproachful look at her curse.

“Did Salem break out?” Ren asked worriedly.

“If she did, she would have attacked Miss Gojo already,” said Penny.

Gojo paused her walk upon hearing Salem’s voice. She looked at Jaune and saw that a mouth had formed on the side of his cheek.

“Any hierarchy other than strength is worthless.”

Jaune cringed in disgust. “Oh, that’s what the opening meant,” he said, reminding them of a similar occurrence in the opening song.

“It looks so cool!” Nora exclaimed.

Pyrrha didn’t think so. “It looks gross.”

“So it wasn’t just ‘crazy imagery’, then,” Blake said, remembering Yang’s comment to Jaune when he expressed his worries in the first episode. “Salem can morph Jaune’s body to create mouths which she can speak through.”

“And Jaune can’t stop her? I thought his whole thing was being the first person in a thousand years to contain and control her power?” Ruby asked.

Yang casually waved off their worries. “I doubt it’s anything to be worried about. Jaune doesn’t look worried so there’s probably no danger of her escaping.”

“I feel like you’re taking this too flippantly.” Weiss chided. Not that she didn’t agree with the blonde’s comment, but a flicker of doubt still remained at the back of her mind.

Jaune slapped his cheek to shut her up. “Sorry, Sensei. She pops out sometimes,” he apologized.

“What an amusing body you have now.”

A mouth formed on the hand, much to Jaune’s chagrin. “Not again!”

“That has got to be annoying,” Pyrrha said.

“Hold on, does this mean Salem can pop out anytime? Like when Jaune is in the shower? Or doing his…private business?” Nora paused as she pondered that last option.

“Nora!” Jaune yelled, mortified by Nora’s question. He chose to ignore the blushes on his friends’ faces when they realized what Nora was talking about, as well as Yang’s resulting cackles. Even Ren was avoiding his gaze, finding the spilled chips on the floor very interesting all of a sudden.

“Be that as it may,” Weiss cut in, focusing intently on the screen as if it would reduce the red hue of her cheeks. “It is worrying that Salem can see and hear everything Jaune can. I know she’s trapped inside of him but that is still much more freedom than I’m comfortable with.”

Blake lifted her shoulders in an indifferent shrug. “Not much they can do short of blinding him or giving him earmuffs.”

“I owe you a favour, you know. Once I make this brat’s body my own, you’ll be the first one I kill!”

Gojo smiled, unfazed by the threat. “It’s an honour to targeted by Salem.”

“This lady’s really that famous?” Jaune asked, smacking his hand down.

“Ryomen Salem is a fierce imaginary goddess with four arms and two faces. But she’s actually a human that really existed, though it was over a thousand years ago.”

Jaune listened attentively to Gojo’s lecture.

“In the golden age of jujutsu, sorcerers gathered up all their might to challenge her and failed.” An image of past Salem in her human form standing over a pile of corpses was shown. “Crowned with the title of Salem, we couldn’t even destroy her grave wax as she traversed the ages after death as a cursed object.” The image transitioned to Salem in her monstrous form with four arms and four eyes.

“Without a doubt, she is the king of curses.” [4]

“Er, shouldn’t that be queen of curses, not king?” Yang asked.

“Not necessarily. Some cultures in the past had female monarchs being given the title of king, or whatever title the culture used, when gender was irrelevant to the office. They also used the masculine form of the word in languages that classify nouns by grammatical gender,” Penny lectured after a quick online search.

Ignoring Penny’s encyclopedic knowledge on the topic, Blake put forth her question. “Wouldn’t it be more fitting to call her a queen regnant?”

“Queen regnant?” was Ruby’s puzzled inquiry.

“Basically a female monarch whose power, or title, is equal to of a king. This is different from a queen consort, who is the wife of a reigning king; or queen regent, who is the guardian of a child monarch and rules in their stead,” Blake explained.

“Wow, you really know a lot about this Blake,” Ruby said in awe.

Blake tried not to preen at the praise. All her years of reading novels had finally paid off.

Ren pondered Blake’s earlier question. “Maybe using ‘king’ over ‘queen’ was to send a message. In some historical periods, the title of king held more authority than that of queen. By calling her the ‘king of curses’, her authority and dominance over other curses is undisputed.”

“I wouldn’t be surprised if she gave herself that title,” Weiss said with a scoff.

Jaune processed this new information. “Who’s stronger, you or her?”

“Well…” They continued their walk. “If Salem regained all of her power, it might be a little draining.”

“Would you lose?”

Gojo smiled confidently. “I’d win.”

“Hell yeah, she would!” Ruby whooped, Jaune and Yang cheering in agreement.

Once again, Weiss withheld her comment on Gojo’s confident declaration of her strength.

They walked into a building. Inside were multiple wooden pillars with hollowed-out metal spaces for candles. The candles were the only lighting in the room, bathing the space in a soft yellow glow.

“You’re late, Summer,” a deep voice called out. The doors closed behind them as they walked in.

Penny’s eyebrows shot up at the familiar voice of General Ironwood. She kept mute, waiting to see if it was actually him.

“Eight minutes late.” A hand-held a thick needle, going to work on a plushie.

Jaune gasped as he took in what he was seeing.

“Not enough to chastise you for, but I know I told you to fix your habit of being late.” The camera panned out revealing the owner of the voice; James Ironwood, surrounded by multiple self-made toys.

Weiss and surprisingly, Penny, gawked at the sight while their friends burst into uproarious laughter.

“Oh, my God! The general of the Atlas army…is a toy maker!” Nora guffawed.

“That’s so freaking hilarious!” If Yang had sat on a chair, she’d have rolled off by now with the way she cackled and rolled around on the floor. Ruby’s laughter was just as rambunctious.

“I…can’t breathe!” Jaune wheezed in-between peals of laughter.

Pyrrha slowly brought her laughter under control, with a few chuckles escaping her every now and then.

“Let’s keep watching,” she said, barely managing to get a word out between chuckles.

That old dude’s making cute things! Jaune thought.

The sight was nothing new to Gojo. “If it’s not enough to chastise me for, then don’t chastise me,” she said haughtily. “You’re just making dolls, anyway. What’s a measly eight minutes?” She turned to Jaune. “That’s Principal James Ironwood.”

“From general of an army to principal of a school. I can’t decide whether that’s an upgrade or downgrade,” said Yang.

Ironwood raised the plushie to inspect it. “That’s the boy?”

“Jaune Arc! I’m into girls like Jennifer Lawrence! Pleasure to meet you!” Jaune bowed, introducing himself.

Silence.

“Why?” Weiss’ face crinkled in distaste.

“That’s even worse than your introduction,” said Ruby.

Jaune gasped in mock hurt. “Ouch.”

Blake rolled her eyes at his dramatics. “She’s not wrong,” she muttered.

“Et tu, Blake?”

Yang and Nora were the only ones who seemed to find the introduction hilarious. “Personally, I think it’s better than your ‘ladies love it’ line,” said Yang.

Pyrrha was left wondering who Jennifer Lawrence was. “An idol, maybe? Or an athlete?” A steady stream of mutterings flew from her lips, creeping Ren out and causing him to subtly shift away from her.

“What did you come here for?” Ironwood asked, cutting into the boy’s introduction.

“An interview,” Jaune replied.

“But why Jujutsu Tech?”

“To learn jujutsu?”

“I mean beyond that. What do you hope to find once you’ve studied curses and learned how to exorcise them?” Ironwood finally put the plushie down, fixing his stern gaze on the teen.

“Well, I mean…I’m going to collect the fingers of Salem. It’s dangerous to leave them as is,” Jaune said. That was as valid a reason as any, he reasoned. His face blanched when Ironwood asked: “Why?”

“Jeez, what more does he want to hear from Jaune?” Nora complained.

“His conviction.” Ren responded, throwing a wild guess. “We haven’t seen much of what being a jujutsu sorcerer entails but it doesn’t look like the easiest of professions. The principal probably wants to make sure Jaune knows what he is getting into.”

The older man stared him down. “People you’ll never know die everyday due to crimes, accidents, and diseases in the natural course of life.”

“Here he goes again,” Gojo muttered.

“But you’re telling me you can’t overlook it when that death is caused by a curse?”

Jaune was beginning to get irritated with the constant questions. What did the principal want him to say? “It was someone’s dying wish. I don’t care about the details. I just want to save people.”

“A dying wish?” Ironwood repeated. “So you’re saying you’ll fight against curses because someone told you to?” He rose to his full height. “You fail.”

The watchers were just as taken aback as onscreen Jaune by the man’s pronouncement.

“Damn, Principal Ironwood is harsh,” commented Yang.

“What’s wrong with fighting curses because someone asked him to?” Nora asked.

“Nothing. At least, there shouldn’t be.” Pyrrha hesitated at the last part.

Ironwood stretched out his right hand and a doll rose to its feet beside him.

“Whoa!”

The students looked on surprised at the suddenly animated doll.

“It’s aliiive!” Nora and Ruby announced before cackling as their friends jolted from the sudden yell.

Weiss tossed them a dirty look which they responded to by laughing even louder.

“Those weren’t dolls?!” Jaune asked the question that was on the watchers’ minds.

“Cursed corpses,” Ironwood explained. “They’re dolls. Dolls infused with my curse.”

“That’s not a bad ability,” Blake commented, impressed.

“Even still…dolls, really?” Yang didn’t share her partner’s positive opinion of the technique.

“Don’t underestimate a technique just because it looks useless at face value,” chided Weiss.

Nora snorted as she imagined a scenario. “Imagine chasing him into a toy store. You think you have him cornered and then, boom! Every doll in the store comes to life and starts dogpiling you!”

Her boisterous narration, as well as the mental imagery of the scene, caused another round of laughter from the teens.

With a flick of his hand, the doll vanished in a burst of speed, reappearing in front of Jaune. He barely had enough time to use his bag to block the doll’s punch.

It’s heavy! He thought, blasting backward into a pole. “Is that really a doll?!”

“Good question!” Yang’s expression was one of disbelief. She was starting to regret writing off the principal’s technique.

“No way that’s a normal doll,” said Jaune.

“Maybe his technique also affects the doll’s nature?” Pyrrha wondered. “Even with the ability to make dolls come to life, they’re still made of cloth or plastic. They shouldn’t be strong enough to push a teenager into a pole with that large amount of force.”

The doll flexed and made funny faces at Jaune.

“So it has a personality, too? Or is Ironwood making it do all that?” Ruby asked, eyes wide in fascination.

“I highly doubt Principal Ironwood would do something so childish,” was Weiss’ clipped response.

“A person’s true nature reveals itself during a crisis,” Ironwood said, ignoring Jaune’s annoyed look. “I’ll keep attacking you until I get an acceptable answer.”

Pyrrha’s left eye twitched at the man’s admission. “You mean you’ll keep attacking him until he’s on the verge of death?”

“I doubt he’ll go that far,” said Ren. “A crisis doesn’t have to be a near-death scenario. Simply putting Jaune in a stressful scenario such as this should be enough.”

Jaune gulped and said a mental prayer for his counterpart.

Jaune stood up, throwing his bag aside. “Look, man, it wasn’t just ‘someone else’.” He rapidly closed the distance between himself and the doll. “It was a family member’s dying wish!”

He punched the doll, sending it flying. Rather than stay down, the doll used the force to build more momentum, bouncing off the walls. The speed of its movement put out the candles, plunging the room into darkness.

“Holy sh*t! That’s a deadly technique!” said Yang. Her previous misgivings over the technique were completely gone now.

“Imagine an army of dolls that can do that!” Nora cackled, thinking of all the chaos fun she could cause with such an ability. She could see the army of sloth dolls already!

Team J_PR subtly inched away from their hammer-wielding teammate. Ren, in particular, shivered in dread of Nora’s machinations.

“sh*t, where is it?!” Jaune looked around, trying to pinpoint the doll.

The doll locked eyes on his unguarded back. Jaune turned just in time to notice it slam it him, causing him to roll away and slam into another pillar.

“Ow…” he groaned, cradling the back of his head.

“A family member is still ‘someone else’.” The doll danced and shook its ass at Jaune.

Blake couldn’t help the snort that burst from her lips. Her snort triggered a round of chuckles from everyone, even an embarrassed Jaune.

The boy scowled, irritated. Right, it’s a doll. It doesn’t get hurt or frightened.

“A jujutsu sorcerer is constantly facing death.” Ironwood relit the candles. “And not just their own death. Sometimes you must ignore those murdered by a curse to rend the flesh from it. It’s an unpleasant job.”

The doll continued its comedy routine.

“You have to be a little crazy and highly motivated to handle it. You’d do that because someone else told you to?” The principal glared at Jaune from behind his glasses. “Don’t make me laugh. It’d be more believable if you told me you were doing it to postpone your execution.”

“He’s not wrong,” said Penny after a moment’s hesitation.

“But what’s so wrong with saving others because his grandfather asked him to?” questioned Ruby.

“Because in the long run, how far will Jaune be able to push himself to fulfill an old man’s dying wish?” Blake responded.

“But he’s not just ‘an old man’. He’s my grandfather,” griped Jaune.

“And what happens when your counterpart is killed by a curse? Will he curse his grandfather in his dying moments?” she replied brusquely.

Jaune gawked at her comment and opened his mouth to retort. It died when Pyrrha uttered the words: “She’s right.”

Fixing her eyes on the screen to ignore the surprised look on his face, Pyrrha moved on with her explanation. “Jaune, he’s being asked to risk his life to face monsters. Monsters that can’t be easily traced, are hidden from public eye, and live among the populace. A good night for jujutsu sorcerers is finding a body torn apart by a curse, with the possibility of the same happening to him. And to cap it all off, he has a death sentence hanging over his head.”

Jaune listened attentively to her words, though by the way his shoulders slumped, he could see where she was going with this.

“With all that being said, do you truly believe a dead man’s wish is a good enough reason to risk his life on a day-to-day basis?”

Jaune sighed before shaking his head. “No, it isn’t.”

Pyrrha entwined his hand with hers in sympathy. She hated seeing him look so down but he had to know that his counterpart’s current mentality wasn’t the best.

Jaune’s irritation at Ironwood had reached a boiling point. He was pissed off. “Screw you! I—”

“Are you going to blame your grandfather when you’re killed by a curse, too?” Ironwood interjected.

They weren’t as taken aback by Ironwood’s question because of their previous conversation but it was still jarring to hear the older man repeat Blake’s question.

Blake now felt bad about how blunt she was with Jaune earlier. She made a mental note to apologize after the episode.

Jaune’s eyes widened at the sudden accusation. He remained silent for a moment, thinking over the man’s question.

“You say some pretty darn harsh things, old man,” he said, affronted.

“Education is making people realize things,” was Ironwood’s rebuttal.

Jaune stroked his chin in thought. The man had raised a lot of good points, although his delivery left a lot to be desired. “I’m not really…”

His sentence was cut off when the doll suddenly gave him a vicious uppercut that sent him tumbling head over heels. Stars dotted his vision as the sudden attack left him on the verge of unconsciousness.

“Jaune!” Pyrrha cried out.

“It’s not easy to imagine how you’ll feel on the verge of death. However, I can say one thing for certain. At the rate you’re going, you could end up cursing your beloved grandfather,” Ironwood declared. “Jujutsu sorcerers never die without regret. I’ll ask you once more. Why have you come here to Jujutsu Tech?”

Jaune stared at the doll charged up for another attack. His thoughts raced a mile a minute as he slowly came to his realization.

I was always better than most in sports and in fights. But never once did I think, “This is something only I can do.”

Eyes lit with renewed determination, Jaune tilted to the left, avoiding the punch. Taking advantage of the doll’s unbalanced position in midair, he tackled it to the floor and placed it in a lock.

“Consuming Salem is something only I can do. If I managed to escape my death sentence and ran away from this responsibility, I’d be there eating food, taking a bath, or reading manga, and the moment I stopped to think, I’d go, ‘Oh, I bet someone’s dying because of Salem right now,’ and become depressed.”

He imagined the curse sitting atop a pile of corpses.

“‘That doesn’t involve me. It’s not my fault.’ You expect me to just tell myself that? I refuse to do that,” Jaune stated. Passion flowed into his every word, eyes filled with determination. “I don’t know how I’ll feel when I’m dying, but I don’t wanna regret the way I lived!”

Gojo’s smile was mirrored by the teens in satisfaction with his answer.

“That was pretty deep. Who knew you weren’t a complete idiot?” Weiss commented.

“Hey! I’m not an idiot?” the aforementioned idiot yelled, affronted.

“It’s okay. You’re an adorable idiot. Like Ruby,” said Yang unsympathetically.

Twin yells of outrage rang out much to everyone’s amusem*nt.

“Summer. Show him to the dorm,” Ironwood ordered, a satisfied smile on his face. “Explain the security and everything else to him, too.”

“Huh?” Jaune looked confused.

“You pass. Welcome to Jujutsu Tech.”

“Woohoo!” Nora cheered. “Jauney’s a jujutsu sorcerer, now!”

“He still has a lot to learn, but I guess you’re right,” Ren commented with a small smile.

Jaune smiled. His joy was short-lived, however, when the doll broke out of his grip and punched him.

They all winced at sudden punch.

“Oh, sorry. I forgot to release the curse.”

“Did you really?” Jaune asked with a deadpan.

[][][]

“Wow! This place is huge!” Jaune exclaimed. Gojo had taken him to his designated room and he was surprised by the size of the dorm. The older woman stood beside the pile of Jaune’s packed things.

“All the second- and third-years are out at the moment,” she informed the teen as he enthusiastically checked out his new home. “But you’ll meet them soon enough. There aren’t many of them.”

“Oh, I wonder what years we’re all in.” Ruby shook in anticipation of their future appearances.

“Logically only second- and third-years. There’s only three first-years, we were told,” said Penny.

“We may not all be in this jujutsu school. There’s another jujutsu teaching facility in Japan, right? Some of us might be attending there.” Weiss added.

“But there’s really no reason for you to fight, too, is there?”

Jaune looked back from where he just hung a poster of Jennifer Lawrence, surprised. [5]

Pyrrha’s eye twitched at the sight of the poster but she composed herself. He’s a teenager. It’s normal for teen boys to like this sort of thing, she thought.

“Ren and I could retrieve Salem’s fingers. You could just wait here.”

“It’s fine. I said I’d do it, and I’m doing it! Though lazing around…” He imagined a scene of himself lazing around while Ren came back looking beat up and worse for wear. “…while Ren came in all beaten up to bring me a finger would be a funny sight.”

“Pfft!” Nora and Jaune tried to hold in their laughter at the sight of a frazzled Ren.

“That’s true,” Gojo agreed. “Well, I know there’s no way in hell you’re not gonna fight.”

“Hey! You were testing me?!” Jaune shouted.

Jaune sighed. “It’s just one test after another. And I just became a jujutsu sorcerer.”

Gojo leaned in close, holding up a finger to silence him.

“If they were that easy to find, we would’ve found them all already. Some have a presence that’s overwhelming. Some keep very quiet. Some have already been absorbed by a cursed spirit. There’s nothing more troublesome when it comes to searching for them.”

Gojo pointed at him. “But now we have you. The Salem within you will tell us where the fingers are to try to regain her power. You’re both vessel and locator, our very own radar. So we won’t get anywhere without you in the field.”

“Smart,” Penny complimented. “But dangerous. That would mean that Friend Jaune can be easily pulled into dangerous situations. Like a cursed spirit that has absorbed the finger. Imagine how strong such a curse would be.”

A feeling of dread blanketed the teens with its chill. They had a bad feeling about Penny’s comment.

Yang tried to look on the bright side of things. “He’ll be fine, he has Gojo with him.”

“You think she’s going to be that nice?” Jaune had his doubts the curse would be cooperative about speeding up her death.

Gojo assuaged his doubts, the two walking out into the corridor. “I think we can come to a win-win agreement there.”

The door next to Jaune’s opened revealing it to be Ren’s bedroom.

“You’re next door?” he grunted.

“Oh, Ren! You look like you’re doing well now.”

Ren ignored him in favour of leveling Gojo with a deadpan glare. “There were plenty other empty rooms, weren’t there?”

“Someone’s being hostile,” Blake commented dryly. “Reminds me of a certain someone…”

“Who? Weiss?” Ruby responded with a snort that turned into full-blown laughter when the heiress glowered at her.

“Yeah, minus the holier-than-thou attitude our ice queen used to have,” Yang added.

Jaune caught Pyrrha’s mumbled, “Still has it, in my opinion,” that had him biting the inside of his cheeks to suppress his laughter.

“But isn’t livelier better?” Gojo commented. “I thought it’d be good for—”

“Classes and missions are enough,” he cut in. “This was an unwelcome favour.”

Jaune walked past them to peek into the room. “Wow, it’s so organized.”

“I just said you’re unwelcome!” Ren slammed the door on Jaune’s head.

“Ow!”

Ren sweatdropped. “I apologize for my counterpart’s…hostility,” he muttered to Jaune who waved it off.

“Well, it’s all good.” Gojo clapped, an impish smile on her face. “More importantly, we’re heading out tomorrow! We’re gonna go to pick up the third first-year.”

“Ten lien says it’s me,” Nora announced.

“That’s a sucker’s bet,” said Yang.

[][][]

The scene switched to a train station called Moriaka station.

“The train bound for Tokyo is now arriving,” was announced on the terminal. “For your safety, please stand behind the yellow line.”

Inside the train, an orange-haired girl stretched her arms.

“It took four hours just to get as far as Morioka. I can finally kiss that damn countryside goodbye. Guess I’ll be in Tokyo by the afternoon.” The camera panned up to reveal the familiar face of Nora Valkyrie. “What should I do if I get scouted? Like, by Stardust?”

Nora jumped to her feet with a loud whoop. “The Queen of the Castle has arrived!”

They all rolled their eyes at her exuberance. Any comments that were about to be made died when the ending theme played.

An animated drawing of Jaune was shown putting cream in his hair before walking out a door and busting into some dancing moves. [6]

“Okayyyy…”

They stared in confusion as the animated Jaune was shown dancing, eating, and fishing. It was Ruby who finally realized what they were looking at.

“It’s the ending sequence. It’s similar to the opening,” she said.

“It’s not bad.” Weiss truly meant it, unconsciously nodding to the beat.

An animated Ren stepped out of another door, walking in a lazy swagger. Unlike Jaune’s antics, Ren was shown doing mundane things such as cycling, eating while reading a book, and walking his Demon Dogs.

“I don’t know why I was expecting Ren to start dancing, too,” Pyrrha chuckled.

“That swagger he showed more than made up for it,” said Yang. Her comment caused his cheeks to tint with red.

“Me next, me next,” chanted Nora.

And she got her wish when her animated version danced into the scene with multiple shopping bags. More stills showed Nora living the life; even more shopping, eating tasty desserts, and more dancing.

Nora excitedly jumped to her feet, pulling Ren up with her as she began dancing. Despite looking like he’d rather not be doing this, he indulged his best friend, even managing a genuine smile as he got more into it.

Even Ruby, Yang, and Jaune got into the dancing spirit, the latter dragging his partner up to join him. The others were content to watch their friends, even as Gojo was shown dancing, shopping for sunglasses, and preparing to eat dessert.

Others were also shown, such as Weiss sitting contentedly, Panda handing a balloon to a child, Blake about to drink something, Qrow eating, a strange lady with white hair in a bob cut, Cardin shaking a girl’s hand, and Oobleck cleaning a car.

The ending sequence came to an end when with a flip, Jaune’s casual outfit switched to his Jujutsu Tech uniform.

“Oh, you guys made cameo appearances!” Ruby said, taking her former position on the floor along with everyone. “And our uncle Qrow!”

“Your uncle? When?” asked Weiss.

“That man that we saw eating something after they showed Blake. With the glasses and tie. He was also in the opening, fighting that cursed spirit with Jaune.”

“Oh, right.” Weiss did remember seeing him in the opening. “And you’re just mentioning that now?”

“We were too busy geeking out on the first opening and then reeling from the shock of Jaune’s two options during the second.” Blake reminded her.

“Anyway, that was a really good episode. Thoughts, anyone?” asked Pyrrha.

“I’m still bummed that my counterpart’s only options are executions,” said Jaune. “Still, his bed has been made, nothing more he can do about it now. All that’s left is for him to focus on learning jujutsu and exorcising curses while looking for Salem’s fingers.”

“Hey, chin up.” Ruby lightly punched his shoulder. “Maybe they’ll find a way to separate the two of you or kill only her.”

Jaune smiled at Ruby’s attempt to cheer him up.

“I’m curious to see other cursed techniques in the show. I wonder if all of us will have different abilities from our counterparts,” said Weiss.

Yang chimed in. “Probably. And what exactly Mom—sorry, Gojo’s technique is. Is she actually the strongest jujutsu sorcerer or is that a self-proclamation?”

“You’re worried that she’s being overconfident in her chances against Salem?” asked Nora.

“A bit, yeah,” she admitted. “I want to believe she’s not just mouthing off but Salem is literally called the King of Curses. That has to mean something.”

“Hopefully we will never see that as long as Jaune keeps Salem suppressed,” Pyrrha commented.

“But for how long? How many fingers can he eat before Salem’s growth in power becomes too much for him to handle?” Ren inquired.

That was the million-lien question, wasn’t it? How far did Jaune’s tolerance of Salem go? All it would take is one slip-up and Salem would take Jaune’s body for herself.

Ruby shook off her worries. “That is for future us to be worried about. For now, let’s get back to our watching.” She clicked on the next episode.

Chapter 4: Girl of Steel

Chapter Text

“Summer. Show him to the dorm,” Ironwood ordered, a satisfied smile on his face. “Explain the security and everything else to him, too.”

“Huh?” Jaune looked confused.

“You pass. Welcome to Jujutsu Tech.”

“I still can’t believe I passed,” Jaune said with an exaggerated sigh.

Pyrrha playfully nudged him. “Don’t sell yourself short. I knew you could do it.”

[][][]

“Oh, Ren! You look like you’re doing well now.”

Ren ignored him in favour of leveling Gojo with a deadpan glare. “There were plenty other empty rooms, weren’t there?”

“But isn’t livelier better?” Gojo commented. “I thought it’d be good for--”

“Classes and missions are enough,” he cut in. “This was an unwelcome favour.”

Nora huffed, annoyed. “Other Ren is way too unsociable for my liking.”

Jaune walked past them to peek into the room. “Wow, it’s so organized.”

“I just said you’re unwelcome!” Ren slammed the door on Jaune’s head.

“Ow!”

“Well, it’s all good.” Gojo clapped, an impish smile on her face. “More importantly, we’re heading out tomorrow! We’re gonna go to pick up the third first-year.”

[][][]

“The train bound for Shibuya and Shinagawa is now arriving on track 1,” a female voice announced. “For your safety, please stand behind the yellow line.”

Ruda-chan, Nora thought. She took in the hustle and bustle of the city, radiant and bursting with colour. I’m here. I’m in Tokyo!

“Ruda-chan?” Ruby asked quizzically.

“A friend, maybe?” Ren suggested. “Possibly a close one if she’s using a -chan suffix.” Upon seeing Ruby’s questioning look, he elaborated. “Chan is a honorific that expresses that you find a person endearing. It can be a child, close friends, babies, and so on.”

“Oh.” Ruby processed what she was just told. “So what does sensei mean?” She never brought it up in the previous episode but she noticed that Gojo was always referred to as such by Ren and she was curious to know what it meant.

“Sensei is used to address authority figures such as teachers, doctors, lawyers,” he explained, gaining a thankful nod from her.

[][][]

Elsewhere, Jaune and Ren stood outside a train station. Most notable was that Jaune now wore a Jujutsu Tech uniform although his looked different from Ren’s; his had a red hood, for one.

“Oh, Jaune has a uniform now?”

“It looks nice. The hood is a nice touch,” said Yang, eyeing it appreciatively.

“Wonder why it was added in the first place,” Weiss muttered.

“How are there only three first-years? Isn’t that too few?” asked Jaune, popsicle in hand.

“Well, have you ever met anyone who can see curses before?” Ren responded.

Jaune pondered the question for a bit. “Nope.”

“That just proves how small a minority jujutsu sorcerers are.”

“Which is very scary thought,” Blake commented. “I don’t know the population of humans and faunus in this world but without the Grimm as a natural predator, they could number in the billions. The negative emotions of billions of individuals pooling together to create curses is bad enough. The fact that the only people who can deal with them are a huge minority is even scarier.”

“So it’s basically an uphill battle against curses.” Weiss frowned in distaste. “One the sorcerers might be losing.”

“That’s dark,” Pyrrha said although didn’t refute her point. It wasn’t hard to come to that conclusion when taking into account the number of curses that could spawn on a daily basis, jujutsu sorcerers’ low numbers, and the occupational hazard that came with the job.

That settled one of the questions on Jaune’s mind. He was curious about something else. “Also, didn’t you say I was the third?”

“Their entry was decided a while ago. You know what our school’s like. Everyone has unique circ*mstances.”

Gojo stepped out of the building in that moment. “Sorry for the wait,” she called, before humming when she took in Jaune’s appearance. “Oh? Your uniform made it in time, I see.”

“Yeah, it’s a perfect fit.” Jaune gave a thumbs up. “Though it’s slightly different from Ren’s.” He tugged at the hood. “It has a hood, for one.”

“That’s because the uniforms can be customized upon request,” Gojo explained.

“That’s just like ours!” Ruby cried excitedly.

“Maybe you should match your counterpart’s style and add a hood to your uniform, Jaune,” suggested Nora with a grin.

Jaune stroked his chin. It wasn’t a bad idea and his counterpart certainly pulled it off. “Maybe I should.”

“As long as it’s not that Pumpkin Pete sweater you love so much,” said Weiss with a grimace.

Jaune looked up in confusion. “Huh? But I never put in any requests.”

“I was the one who put in the custom order,” she informed him.

Jaune and Ren looked at her oddly. The former blinked in acceptance. “Whatever, I guess.”

“Be careful. Gojo-sensei has a tendency to do things like that,” Ren warned him. He looked back at their teacher. “More importantly, why are we meeting up in Harajuku?”

“Because it’s what she wanted,” she told him as they moved through the streets.

“Hey, popcorn! I want some!” declared Jaune.

“Same!” Nora reached for the popcorn bowl only for her hand to turn up empty. The popcorn was finished! “What? Where did all the popcorn go?!”

“Our bellies?” was Ren’s snarky reply which had Nora sending a mock glare in his direction.

“Not even three episodes in and we’ve gone through half of our snacks,” Yang whistled, impressed. There were going to be many bathroom breaks before they reached the halfway point of the show.

[][][]

“Oh, hello there. Are you on the clock right now?” A middle-aged man was shown striking up conversation with a young woman.

“No, I’m not,” she responded, blatantly ignoring him.

The man was undeterred. “You see, I’m looking for potential models. This is who I am. Would you be interested?” He held out a card to the lady.

Some of the girls rolled their eyes at the scene. It wasn’t uncommon for random men to approach them while they were minding their businesses with modeling offers such as this.

Pyrrha’s eye twitched in annoyance. It was even worse in her case due to her fame and status as Mistral’s champion for four years in a row. Everyone wanted the “Invincible Girl” on their brand to increase their popularity.

Nora watched them from across the street.

“I’m in a hurry right now.”

“Just hear me out!” he cried as she walked off.

Jaune shook his head, exasperated. “Dude, know when to stop. She’s said no already.”

He moved to approach her again when a hand on his shoulder stopped him short.

“Hey, you,” Nora called out, pointing to herself. “What about me?”

Team J_PR blanched at that. Nora as a model? The very idea of the bombastic and boisterous girl as a model sounded ridiculous and Jaune (foolishly) voiced his opinion.

“I’m sorry, but Nora as a model?!” Any other statement he wanted to make was cut short when he felt a dark presence looming over him.

“And what exactly are you implying, Jaune?” A dark expression shadowed Nora’s face and the aura radiating from her body was so intense and menacing, they briefly wondered whether the bomber had somehow awakened cursed energy.

Jaune voiced an unmanly squeak and teleported behind Pyrrha, using her as a buffer between himself and certain death. “N-Nothing at all, I swear! Cross my heart and hope to die!”

The stare down went on for a few more seconds with everyone around them either too scared (Ruby), uncaring (Ren, Weiss, Blake), confused (Penny), or amused (Pyrrha, Yang) to interfere.

Nora finally backed down with a huff before pointing at her eyes and then Jaune in the customary ‘I got my eyes on you’ gesture. “And for the record, I’d make a great model,” she said with an air of confidence.

No one refuted her statement.

Jaune gulped, deciding that his position behind Pyrrha was more secure and comfortable in the event Nora turned her ire on him again. He sent Ren a dirty look, his eyes asking why the calm teen hadn’t come to his rescue, which the former replied with a shrug and an imperceptible smirk.

Her?! The man thought frightfully. He stared at her in trepidation.

“Pfft!” Ruby clamped down on her laughter to keep stave off Nora’s ire.

“Hey! I’m perfect for the job!” Nora yelled.

Weiss thought otherwise but was smart enough to keep her mouth shut.

She crossed her arms. “For the modeling gig, duh. I’m asking what you think about me.”

“Oh, um, I’m in a hurry at the moment…” he stammered, and made to excuse himself.

“Wow. Way to switch up real fast,” Yang snorted.

Nora was not having it. Jaune and the others watched from across the street as she dragged him back.

“What the hell? Don’t run from me! Come out and say it!”

The man tried to run but her grip was too strong.

“We’re about to go talk to her ?” asked Jaune

“Jaune…” Nora growled, earning another unmanly squeak from him.

“I’m sorry! Please let me go!” the man pleaded.

“This is kinda embarrassing.” Jaune was decked out in sunglasses that spelled ROOK and carrying popcorn and a crepe.

The teens stared flatly at him.

“You’re one to talk,” scoffed Weiss.

“Somehow he managed to outdo you at being unfashionable,” Yang barked out a laugh at the sulking Jaune.

Ren huffed. “So are you.”

Ren shook his head in pity for his counterpart and the embarrassment he must be feeling.

“Hey!” Gojo called out, drawing Nora’s attention to them. “Over here!”

“Damn, what’s up with that blindfold?” commented two girls that walked behind them.

Yang and Ruby chuckled at their mother’s counterpart having admirers.

[][][]

Nora slammed her locker shut and turned to her new classmates and teacher.

“Okay, once again,” Gojo prompted.

“Nora Valkyrie,” she introduced herself, hand on her waist. “Be happy, boys. You have one more woman in your group.”

“Team Junior is now in action!” Nora whooped excitedly.

Jaune’s brow furrowed in confusion. “Junior?”

“Well, we can’t be Team Juniper without Pyrrha.”

Pyrrha’s face fell at the reminder that she wasn’t close with her friends in this alternate universe. She tried not to let it get to her, consoling herself with constant reminders that she might not be the only one with either no counterpart at all (and it was scary to think she didn’t exist in that universe), a counterpart with no connection to them, or perhaps other Pyrrha had just yet to meet her friends.

(Opening Theme: Kaikai Kitan by Eve)

“The opening gets better and better every time I listen to it,” Ruby commented. They all nodded in agreement.

“Does Weiss’ counterpart need glasses in order to see curses?” Blake wondered just as they got to the part where a curse was only visible to Weiss once she put on her glasses.

Weiss chewed her bottom lip as she stared at the screen. “Perhaps. But does that mean she’s just a regular person who fights curses?”

“If so then that is badass as hell,” said Yang with a grin as the opening showed Hanami and Jogo. “And those are some freaky looking curses.”

“I’m more spooked by that curse with a patchwork face,” said Jaune. Something about the way Mahito licked blood off his hands while bearing a sad*stic smile had him release an involuntarily shudder. “I just have this ominous feeling that that curse will bring us so much trouble in the future.” [1]

“I’m more curious about how different our Semblances will be from their powers,” said Nora, eyeing the nails her counterpart appeared to be manipulating with cursed energy.

Blake hummed in agreement, also wondering what the markings on her counterpart’s cheek and tongue were for. She doubted they were simply for aesthetic purposes if other Blake went out of her way to cover them with a high collar. Probably an auditory ability of some kind.

Penny couldn’t hold in her confusion any longer. “Is no one going to talk about the panda parkouring on the rooftops?”

“I want to say it’s probably just cool imagery but considering everything we’ve seen so far…” Pyrrha trailed off.

“You’re not seriously suggesting that it’s an actual panda, are you?” Weiss asked, incredulous. “It’s probably a cursed spirit. Or the result of someone’s technique.”

As the opening played on, Yang glared at the screen when Raven came up. Ruby and Blake picked up on her change in mood but chose not to say anything yet.

Jaune winced in empathy for his counterpart, watching as his fingertips were burned off by an attack. “My counterpart is really gonna go through hell, isn’t he?” he muttered to himself and Pyrrha. His wince turned to a smile as his grandfather flashed on the screen.

The group looked on in surprise at the next scene. Where it used to be just Jaune, Ren, Summer, and an unknown boy, Nora and Ironwood were now added to the scene.

Ruby hastily paused. “Nora and Ironwood weren’t part of this scene before, were they?” she asked.

Ren shook his head. “They weren’t. I guess with every new character that gets introduced, they might get added to the picnic. Although I wonder who that boy is and why he’s been there from the start…”

“I’m sure we’ll see him soon enough. I can’t wait to see what other changes are added to the opening as we keep watching!” Nora exclaimed as the opening played on and ended.

Stare… Nora scrutinized the two boys.

“I’m Jaune Arc. I’m from Sendai.” The blonde-haired boy enthusiastically introduced himself.

By contrast, Ren’s introduction was completely lackluster. “Lie Ren.”

Nora narrowed her eyes. The scene switched to her POV of the boys, transforming Jaune and Ren into wobbling messes.

He looks like a potato, she thought, staring at Jaune. He’s definitely the type that ate his own boogers as a kid. She looked at Ren, his image giving off a haughty frown. And only a name here? I can’t stand high-and-mighty dudes. I bet he likes setting oil-slicked gulls on fire.

“Rude much,” Jaune said, leveling his ginger-haired teammate with a deadpan glare.

Ren shook his head in amusem*nt while his best friend and partner gave Jaune the middle-finger.

She released an exaggerated sigh. “I always get stuck with unfortunate circ*mstances.”

“She took one look and sighed,” Jaune bemoaned.

“Not hard to do considering it’s you,” Weiss said, lips curled in mockery.

Jaune and Ren had to hold back their respective partners from attacking the heiress.

Ren, unconcerned with her reaction, turned to Gojo. “Are we going somewhere from here?”

Gojo chuckled. “We do have all three of you together. Not to mention, two of you are from the countryside. So of course, we’re going on a tour of Tokyo!” she announced.

As one, Gojo, Jaune and Nora cheered. “Tokyo! Tokyo! Tokyo!” they chanted.

“We love Tokyo!” Jaune and Nora declared with stars in their eyes.

Blake sweat-dropped at their sudden enthusiasm. Nora’s especially. “I thought she hated them?”

“Disliked,” Nora corrected, grinning broadly at herself and Jaune’s shenanigans. “And clearly her love for this Tokyo place supersedes it.”

“Huh?” Ren sweat-dropped.

Jaune had his arms around Gojo’s neck while Nora jumped up and down excitedly.

“TDL! I want to go to TDL!” she requested.

“Idiot! TDL’s in Chiba!” Jaune struck a fighting pose. “Let’s go to Chinatown, Sensei!”

“Chinatown’s in Yokohama!” Nora rebutted.

“Yokohama’s part of Tokyo! Don’t you know that? Look at a map!”

Gojo watched their argument with an amused smile.

“The hell?! Quit spouting nonsense!”

Gojo spoke up. “I will now announce our destination.” That drew their attention and the duo knelt before her.

“They got along quick,” said Ruby, smiling at their banter.

Yang let out a bark of laughter. “Ren just being grumpy in the background cracks me up!”

“His worst nightmare.” Jaune grinned mischievously. “Being the sole introvert on a team with extroverts.”

Ren shook his head, an amused smile playing on his lips. “My poor, poor counterpart. I feel a great swell of pity for him having to be saddled with you two.”

“Hey!”

“Roppongi!” Gojo announced.

“Roppongi?!” The stars returned to their eyes as they imagined the city full of lights. Ren’s annoyance seemed to have mounted at their exuberance.

[][][]

The scene cut to the four of them standing in front of an abandoned building. A dark aura emanated from the building signifying the presence of a curse.

“There’s a curse here,” explained Gojo.

Yang did a spit take that devolved into raucous laughter which everyone joined in.

“Oh…my…God,” Pyrrha wheezed, resting her full weight on Jaune who was barely holding them up with the way his body shook with laughter.

Blake’s shoulder shook in barely restrained mirth. “She really got them good,” she said.

They watched with amused grins as Nora and Jaune blew up on their teacher.

“You liar!” Gojo smiled unrepentant while Nora and Jaune protested in anger.

“This isn’t even Roppongi!” Jaune groaned, covering his eyes.

Nora glared daggers at the older woman. “You were toying with us country folk!”

Ren looked as unbothered as ever. Knowing Gojo the longest meant he was used to — or at least aware of — her antics.

“There’s a big cemetery nearby.” Gojo continued her explanation. “The double whammy of that and an abandoned building brought out a curse.”

“So they really do pop up more often around graves?” Jaune inquired, his previous frustration all gone.

Not Nora’s, though. “Who does she think is responsible for the rice she gets to eat, huh?” she ranted.

“The issue isn’t the cemetery itself,” Ren explained. “It’s the fact that people associate cemeteries with fear.”

“Oh, it was the same for schools, too, wasn’t it?”

“Does that mean there could be curses in our school right now and we’d never be aware of it?” Ruby shuddered, eyes whipping about the room frantically.

It was like a chill blanketed their bodies as the now nervous teens eyed the space around them cautiously.

Penny clapped her hands, snapping them out of their funk. “I highly doubt there is any need to be cautious. Curses are only a danger in that other world.”

“How would you know that?” Yang asked. “Curses could exist in our world as well and we’d be none the wiser.”

“And assuming you’re right, what could you possibly do about that?”

Penny’s counter was sound; even if curses existed in their world, there’s nothing they could do about it as they had no cursed energy. Curses were also invisible to the naked eye so searching for them would be a exercise in futility.

Blake sighed, shaking off any lingering nerves. “Penny’s right. There’s literally nothing we can do even if curses exist. We wouldn’t even be aware of them were it not for this show of our counterpart’s lives.”

“Let’s just keep watching before we psych ourselves any further.” With Jaune’s piece said, they returned to watching.

“Hold up,” Nora interrupted. “He didn’t even know that yet?” It was the most basic information for a jujutsu sorcerer so why did he sound so surprised?

“I mean, he did just become a jujutsu sorcerer,” Nora said.

“To be honest…” Ren recalled the moment Jaune swallowed Salem’s finger to save his life.

“He swallowed a special-grade cursed object?” Nora yelled in surprise. And a bit of disgust. “Gross! Unbelievable! That’s so unsanitary and disgusting!” She scooted farther from Jaune. “No way, no way, no way, no way!”

“What?!” Jaune asked, affronted.

“I agree with her,” said Ren.

“Same.”

“Agreed.”

“Hey!” Jaune cried in indignation.

Gojo cut into their conversation. “I want to know what all of you are capable of,” she said. “Just think of this as a field test.”

“Oh, we’re about to see what I can do.” Nora leaned forward, keeping her full interest on the screen.

Ren co*cked an eyebrow. “You do know the test is for all of us, right?”

“And we’ve already seen what yourself and Jaune are capable of.” She waved off his question. “This test is most probably to see what other me can do.”

“Nora, Jaune, you two go exorcise the curse inside that building,” she ordered.

Nora made a noise of complaint.

“Huh, but I thought only curses could exorcise curses, right? I can’t use any jujutsu yet,” said Jaune.

“sh*t, that’s true.”

“To be fair, he just joined Tokyo Jujutsu Tech yesterday,” said Blake.

That did little to abate Pyrrha’s worries. “And he’s being sent to exorcise a curse already?”

“I’m sure Gojo-sensei has something that can help with that,” Jaune said softly, rubbing her hand comfortingly.

Gojo grinned, pointing at the blonde-haired boy. “You’re basically half a curse already. There’s cursed energy flowing throughout your body.” She walked over to him “Though controlling that energy isn’t something you can learn overnight, so use this.” With that, she handed him a weapon.

Ren’s eyes widened in surprise when Jaune unsheathed it. It was a combat knife with a black handle and a fur guard.

“It’s the cursed tool, Slaughter Demon.” Jaune admired the weapon while Gojo explained. “It’s a weapon imbued with cursed energy. It’ll work on curses, too.”

“See?” Jaune’s radiant smile, as well as the assurance that his counterpart wouldn’t be going in defenseless eased Pyrrha’s worries.

Although her cheeks exploded with a blush when she noticed their hands were still connected, she did nothing to disentangle them.

“So objects can be imbued with cursed energy.” Penny scrunched her brows in thought. “I wonder how long they can last. Is it permanent? Does the cursed energy have to be reapplied after a certain length of time?”

“It’s a neat idea,” said Weiss. “I wonder if the same can be applied to Aura.”

Ren decided to join the conversation. “What purpose would imbuing an object with Aura serve? A cursed tool’s function is to help even those without cursed energy to exorcise curses because they can’t do so without it.”

“He has a point,” Blake chimed in, idly scratching her cat ears. “Aura isn’t necessary in order to kill Grimm. How would one even imbue Aura into an object?”

“Maybe there’s a special ritual or something?” Ruby wondered, also intrigued by the possibility of permanently Aura-enhanced weapons. Even better, if Semblances could be imbued inside weapons…

She put that thought at the back of her mind as the episode played on.

Jaune sheathed the blade, happy that he now had a means of combating curses.

“Lame,” Nora scoffed. Tying her belt with her nail pouch on her waist, she walked over to the building. Jaune followed behind her.

“Oh, one more thing.” Gojo called out, drawing Jaune’s attention. “Don’t let Salem out. If you use her, you’ll get rid of all the curses nearby in a flash, but you’ll also drag everyone around into it.”

Yang nodded. “Good idea. Besides, this is a test of Jaune’s ability, not Salem’s.”

Jaune gave her a thumbs up. “Got it. I won’t let Salem out.”

“Hurry it up,” Nora called out impatiently.

Jaune ran up to her. “Yeah, yeah!”

“Go on, now!”

Jaune lifted the garage door and they walked in. While Nora casually strolled in, Jaune scurried around like he was in an action movie, peeking around corners and into doors.

Ruby snorted. “You look like you’re in an action movie.”

[][][]

“I think I’ll go, too,” said Ren. Himself and Gojo sat across the street from the building.

“Don’t push yourself. You’re still recovering,” she advised.

“But someone needs to keep an eye on Arc, right?”

“True,” she agreed. “But the one we’re testing this time is Nora.”

Nora looked at Ren smugly. “Called it.”

He rolled his eyes in good-natured exasperation.

[][][]

Inside the building, Jaune continued his sneaky routine while Nora casually walked up a flight of stairs.

“What a pain. Why do I have to deal with curses after coming all the way to Tokyo?” she complained.

“Because you’re attending a school where you learn to do just that…” Blake said with a confused drawl.

“Maybe her circ*mstances are different from Jaune’s,” Yang offered in way of an explanation.

Jaune looked at her, confused. Why would she come to Jujutsu Tech in the first place if she didn’t want to exorcise curses? He asked as much. “Huh? Didn’t you come here to exorcise curses?”

“Let’s save some time and split up,” she said, ignoring his question. “I’ll start from the top and go floor by floor. You start from the bottom. Let’s get this over quick and grab some sushi from Ginza.”

Jaune shook his head rapidly. “No. No, don’t split up. That is the fastest way to die in horror settings!”

“This isn’t a movie, Jaune,” Pyrrha said with a light chuckle. “Besides, I doubt Gojo will allow anything bad to happen to them.”

“Hold on a minute. Let’s take this a bit more seriously. Curses are dangerous, you know.”

Nora’s annoyance kicked up a notch at that line. Who was he to tell her to be careful? Without warning, she ran down the stairs and kicked him. He spun comically before collapsing to the floor.

“I don’t wanna hear it from someone who was a normie until recently! Now get moving! Humph!”

“Just because he’s a newbie doesn’t mean he can’t give good advice, meanie!” Ruby said, crossing her arms with an annoyed huff.

“Your emotions have been all over the place today!” Jaune cried in disbelief.

“This is why girls don’t like you!”

“Hey!”

“Where did that come from?” Yang could barely get out her question through her chortles.

Nora openly laughed at her counterpart’s attitude. “I love her!”

“Of course you do,” Pyrrha muttered, a small grin playing on her lips.

“How did you know they don’t like me?!” He sounded affronted by her insinuation. “Are you even popular enough to talk? Bitch,” he muttered.

An icy chill washed over the room instantly. Terror came over many of the occupants at the last word that was uttered from alternate Jaune’s mouth.

“Jaune?”

He gulped. Loudly. “Y-Yes, Nora?”

“Did your counterpart just call me a bitch?” She was the picture of perfect calm; an antithesis to her naturally chaotic state. And that calm scared Jaune more than anything else.

“No-Yes, he did!” He squeaked when her calm gaze turned icy at his original denial.

Nora smiled disarmingly. “That’s good.” Then without warning, she launched herself at his screaming form. “GET OVER HERE!”

Yang, Pyrrha, and Ren intercepted her flight, holding back the rabid bomber from committing first-degree murder. Meanwhile, the target of her misplaced anger was hiding on Yang’s bunk, peering down anxiously at the scene.

“I’m sorry, Nora, but it wasn’t me that said it!”

She trashed around in her captors’ grips. “Well I can’t get to him so you’re the next best thing!”

“Nora, calm down!” Yang held her shoulder forcefully, uncaring for whether or not she bruised Nora’s shoulder in the process; Aura would take care of that.

“Let me go, dammit!”

Pyrrha wracked her brain for anything she could say to calm her down. “I’ll get you another toy sloth!”

“Boo!” She stuck her tongue out at the champion.

“I’ll get you an all you can eat pancake buffet!” Jaune yelled from his perch.

“I can get Ren to make me that, easily. And you don’t get a say in bribing me, mister!”

A light bulb went off in Ren’s head as she trashed against their grip. He bent down to whisper something into her ear.

Nora ceased her trashing, looking at her partner with wide eyes. “Really?”

He nodded.

Nora’s lips curled into an evil smirk. She calmed down, wordlessly returning to her former position beside Ren.

Jaune tentatively inched over to the group, making sure to keep Pyrrha between himself and his orange-haired teammate as he sat down.

A curse descended from the ceiling above him. He sensed it just as it brought a pincer down on to stab the teen. Purple blood splashed onto the floor alongside the severed limb as Jaune cleaved it from its host. He flipped away as the curse dropped to the floor.

Their hearts leaped to their throats when the curse attacked but they all visibly breathed a sigh of relief when Jaune cut its arm off and dodged it.

“Do…you need…a receipt?” it growled.

Weiss grimaced at the sight of the creature. “What a hideous creature.”

It’s a curse! Jaune raised the blade in defense.

The curse charged at Jaune who dodged its attack and stabbed it in the chest. Sliding underneath the creature, he dragged the blade down its underside. Not giving it a chance to recuperate, he removed two of its legs to unbalance it. Then with a final leap, he brought the blade down on the curse’s head.

Yang let out a low whistle in appreciation. “Not bad. Especially for one using a blade for the first time.”

“He already has the physical strength and combat skills necessary for fighting cursed spirits. All that remains is to get his jujutsu skills up to snuff,” Penny added.

He held the blade in place as it writhed in pain beneath him until it went still.

He rubbed his nose, a proud smile on his face. “Yeah, I can really move!”

“Damn right!” Jaune stated smugly before deflating at the memory of his own skill in Grimm slaying. “Now if only I was that good.”

Pyrrha smiled at him encouragingly. “With constant practice, I’m sure you’ll get as good as him.”

[][][]

Outside, Gojo and Ren continued their conversation.

“That Jaune…He’s missing a few up here,” Gojo commented, tapping the side of her head. “He has no hesitation when it comes to killing these things that take the form of living creatures, albeit bizzare-looking ones, to try to kill him.”

The screen replayed scenes from the first episode where Jaune took on the Grade 2 curse, and leaped four floors into the air to rescue his senpai.

“I still can’t believe other Jaune actually did all that. For someone who just found out curses exist, he’s really fearless,” Blake said, her tone showing how impressed she was.

Weiss snorted under her breath. “Don’t forget a little crazy.” He had to be, after all, if he was a jujutsu sorcerer.

Ren sat in silence, listening to Gojo’s lecture.

“And it’s not like he’s been familiar with curses for a long time, like you. This is a boy who used to live a normal high school life. You’ve seen plenty of jujutsu sorcerers, even those with talent, give up in frustration because they couldn’t conquer their fear or disgust, haven’t you?”

Ren looked down in contemplation.

[][][]

Nora entered a room with a bunch of mannequins stacked in a corner.

“So today, I want to confirm how crazy she is,” Gojo stated.

“If she’s anything like our Nora, she’s pretty damn crazy,” Yang said with a wide grin.

Nora matched her grin. “Damn straight! Normal’s boring!”

“Hey, you, curse,” she called out to the seemingly ordinary mannequins. Her gaze rested on the one standing in the middle. “I mean you, mannequin in the center. You actually think you’re hidden there?”

The mannequin remained still.

Nora brought out two nails and a hammer decorated with a heart. “If you won’t come out, I’ll just exorcise you there.”

“Ohhh.” Nora leaned forward in anticipation. “I can’t wait to see what she can do.”

“Looks like she uses a hammer just like you,” Ren said, also eager to see what her technique was. Perhaps it had something to do with the nails.

[][][]

“But Valkyrie has experience, right?” asked Ren. “Little late for that now, isn’t it?”

“Curses are born from human minds. So their strength and numbers grow in proportion to the population.”

Blake hummed thoughtfully. “I see. So curses from the countryside or small towns are not as powerful as curses in big cities.”

“So Nora’s being tested on how well she can adapt to the difference in power levels between countryside curses and big city curses,” Weiss noted.

[][][]

Nora pulled her hand back as she imbued the nails with her cursed energy. Letting go of the coated nails which left them levitating, she hit them with her hammer. The nails flew with great speed and force, hitting the mannequin’s face dead-on.

Their eyes widened in surprise.

“That’s not a bad ability. It’s perfect for long- to mid-range combat,” said Pyrrha, intrigued.

Nora chimed in eagerly on the discussion. “But not so good for close combat, which is my specialty. I guess if she’s good at martial arts, she can possibly augment her combat abilities with her hammer.”

“To be honest, I expected a bit more,” Weiss mumbled to herself.

The mannequin bent over backwards but didn’t fall to the ground like it should have. Nora eyed it carefully.

“Don’t tell me it’s going to get up,” Ren said with a grimace.

“Do you think Nora understands that curses in Tokyo are on a different level than those in the countryside?” said Gojo.

An eye opened up on the mannequin’s face.

The group jolted in surprise at the mannequin’s eye.

Ruby and Weiss shivered. “That’s beyond creepy.”

“Tell me about it.”

“I wonder if the curse’s form is a mannequin or it’s simply hiding within the mannequin,” Penny said curiously.

[][][]

The scene briefly changed to show Nora leaving the countryside. She passed a white van that was covered in insults such as “Go back to Tokyo”, “Leave”, and “Filth”.

“The countryside doesn’t look bad,” Pyrrha said before gasping in surprise at the van that was covered in insults.

Jaune hesitantly spoke up. “Do you think that’s why Nora left?”

Nora shrugged. “Maybe.” She acted nonchalant outwardly but on the inside, she asked herself the same question. Did other me leave the countryside because of the people living there?

“Curses are born from human minds,” narrated Gojo. “So their strength and numbers grow in proportion to the population.”

[][][]

“Curses in Tokyo are on a different level than those in the countryside.”

The scene returned to Nora staring at the mannequin curse. More eyes opened up on the mannequin’s head and it jerkily stood straight.

“You might want to pull those out…” Nora said, snapping her fingers. The nails embedded themselves deeper into the curse’s face. “…or my cursed energy will flow into you.”

The nails vibrated faster and faster until with a burst of cursed energy, the curse’s head exploded.

Nora whooped in excitement. “That was so cool!”

“She surprised me with that last bit.” Weiss readjusted her position to get blood flowing into her legs again as she explained. “I had my doubts about the efficiency of such an ability, especially since there didn’t appear to be any serious damage done to the curse. I guess I was wrong.”

Ren cleared his throat before chiming in. “So her technique involves coating nails in cursed energy and hitting them with her hammer to embed them into her target. If that isn’t enough to kill it, her cursed energy from the nails will flow into the target and explode, killing it.”

“It’s quite the unique ability. I don’t think I’ve seen anything like it before. She’s good,” said Blake.

Pride swelled Nora’s chest from the compliments her counterpart received.

Nora smiled proudly. Nailed it.

Yang and Nora barked out a laugh while the rest of the room, bar Penny, groaned at the pun.

“God, please let her not be another Yang,” Ruby whined.

A sudden whimper drew her attention. She looked on in surprise when a piece of wood fell, revealing a frightened child hiding behind some cardboard boxes.

Pyrrha’s face twisted with worry. “What’s a child doing there?”

A child? Must have snuck in for some fun and encountered the curse. She walked over to the child. “Hey, it’s all right now. Come on out,” she said warmly.

The boy shook his head in fear.

Huh?! Surprise and embarrassment washed over her. “I guess it’s true that kids don’t warm up to beautiful women. Guess I’ll call Arc,” she said, turning to leave before the boy’s sudden cry of “Wait!” caused her to halt.

Yang guffawed over Nora’s expression. Whatever comment she was about to make died in her throat when the kid cried out.

“Don’t leave me here!”

She looked back in time to see another curse phase through the wall and pick the kid by the head much to his terror.

They stared in horror as they were filled with impending dread for the child’s life.

“No, no, no, no,” Ruby muttered rapidly, biting her lips.

The nervous energy in the room was so palpable, one could cut through it like a hot knife through butter.

Nora moved to attack the curse when she finally noticed; the curse wasn’t attacking her or trying to kill the boy. If anything it appeared to be using him as a shield. Her theory was confirmed when the creature raised a clawed finger near the frightened boy’s throat.

It’s taking him hostage? She watched in horror as the curse’s claw poked the boy’s skin, drawing blood. This curse has intelligence?!

“Those things can gain intelligence?” Yang stared agape at the screen.

Blake eyed the curse distastefully. “I mean, we’ve seen an intelligent curse already. Ryomen Salem, anyone?”

“Yeah, but she used to be a human a long time ago,” Weiss retorted. “I don’t know what the process of turning herself into a cursed object entailed, or what her personality was like as a human but I want to believe it stayed the same. In this case, these are everyday curses that have somehow gained intelligence.”

“When I say ‘level’, I don’t just mean the amount of cursed energy they have.”

[][][]

Ren shot a questioning look at his teacher.

“It’s their cunning,” she explained. “Monsters that have gained wisdom will often force cruel choices upon you with the weight of human lives in the balance.”

[][][]

“Damn it, damn it, damn it! Damn it!” Nora cursed, glaring at the smug-looking curse. This curse isn’t even all that strong! Grade 4…Maybe even lower, like a low Grade 3! But it’s aware of that! She stared at the boy in the curse’s grasp as he cried in pain and fear. That’s why it chose to take a hostage!

Ren stared intently at the screen, fists clenched on his thighs. His eyes roamed the screen, looking for any way onscreen Nora could turn the situation to her advantage and save the child. “There has to be a way…” he muttered.

“It’s not too dissimilar from the Grimm, then,” Pyrrha stated with a frown. “Gaining intelligence the longer they live.”

“Damn it!” Nora cursed, gritting her teeth. Realistically, she knew there was nothing her counterpart could do. Charging in recklessly will get the child killed faster. She also couldn’t use her technique because the curse had a human shield. Still, she mentally urged her counterpart to do something .

She gritted her teeth in frustration. Calm yourself down. If I die, the child dies, too. But if the child dies, I won’t die. Logically speaking, it’s better if I survive, at least! Her grip on her hammer tightened.

Curse her bleeding heart, she couldn’t just look on and watch a child die. Nora knew she would regret her next line of action. Without giving it another thought, she dropped her hammer and bag of nails. She then raised her arms in surrender.

“I’m unarmed. Let the boy go.”

“I’m not really sure that’s a good idea,” said Weiss.

Ruby rounded on her partner. “But what other choice does she have?” she asked.

“I’m with Weiss on this one,” said Penny. “It’s a curse, a creature born from humanity’s and the faunus’ negative emotions. Their very nature makes them untrustworthy.”

The curse looked at her in surprise before grinning mischievously.

“See?”

Nora glared in frustration. I’m such an idiot! See, it’s not letting him go at all! She looked down at the floor morosely. “I wish I could have seen Ruda-chan one last time,” she muttered sadly.

Who is this Ruda-chan she cares about so much? Ren thought.

A fist suddenly punched through the wall behind the curse, sparking looks of surprise from Nora, the child, and the curse.

“Huh? I missed?” Jaune’s voice called out, his hand groping blindly. Before the curse could regain its bearings, the wall crumbled as Jaune forced himself through it.

“What is the source of his superhuman strength?” Weiss asked, mouth agape with incredulity.

Jaune shrugged, a small grin playing on his lips. “He eats his vegetables?”

“At this point, it shouldn’t be surprising anymore,” said Ren, shaking his head in amusem*nt.

The curse raised its claw to the boy’s throat threateningly. Jaune was not having it and with one swipe of Slaughter Demon, the hand holding the child, as well as some fingers on its other hand, were cleaved off. Still in motion, he caught the boy with one arm while kicking the curse away from them.

“You okay?” he asked the boy who nodded in response.

They allowed themselves to breathe easier, the tension on their bodies ebbing now that the boy was safe.

“Now all that’s left is to deal with the curse…” Pyrrha’s statement hung in her throat as the curse phased through the wall to escape.

“Oh, come on! It’s getting away!” Ruby griped.

“Have you forgotten that Gojo and Ren are outside?”

Ruby chuckled in embarrassment, having forgotten that.

“It’s getting away!” cried Jaune.

Nora wasn’t having it. “I don’t think so! Jaune!” she called out while unbuttoning her jacket to retrieve her straw doll. “Give me that arm!”

Jaune and the child looked at the severed arm with matching puzzled expressions. “Huh?”

“What’s she about to do?” Pyrrha wondered.

[][][]

The curse phased out of the building, alerting Gojo and Ren.

“I’ll exorcise it,” said Ren.

“Hold on.”

[][][]

Her straw doll was dropped onto the arm.

“A straw doll?” the boy asked. He and Jaune clung to each other, spooked.

“Creepy,” Jaune replied.

“Agreed.” Ruby and Jaune shuddered.

“I think it’s interesting,” Penny said, leaning forward in anticipation. She had an idea of what Nora was about to do but she couldn’t be sure until she saw it in action.

Ignoring the two, Nora levitated a cursed energy-imbued nail over the doll. “Straw Doll Technique: Resonance!” She hammered the nail down into the doll and arm.

[][][]

The curse’s heart throbbed painfully before multiple stakes pierced through its body from within. The curse dissolved into thin air and with that, it was exorcised. The dark aura wafting off the building also dissipated.

“That. Was. Awesome!” Nora cheered. Her counterpart’s technique was quite cool in her opinion. Almost as cool as her ability to absorb electricity.

Penny was amazed by Nora’s technique. “Her ability is so fascinating! The ability to deal lethal damage over a long-distance simply by acquiring a piece of the individual is quite novel!”

“That is a frightening technique,” Weiss admitted. “How does one even defend against that?”

“You can’t,” Blake replied. “At least, we haven’t been shown how to.”

“I wonder what determines the effectiveness of the ability.” Ren stroked his chin in thought. “Does any piece of an individual work? Can she use an object that her target considers important? Is there a maximum range before her ability can no longer take effect?”

Nora placed a finger on his lips, stalling any further questions. “Shhh! We can geek out over my counterpart’s powers later. Let’s keep watching.”

“I really hope no one in our world has that sort of power,” Ruby muttered before resuming the episode.

Ren and Gojo stared at the empty spot where the curse had been. The former looked bummed out, perhaps at not being able to participate in the exercise. The latter smiled in satisfaction.

“Nice. She’s crazy, all right.”

“Does that mean Ren is crazy since he’s a jujutsu sorcerer?” Pyrrha asked with snort.

Ren chuckled. “I’ll have you know my counterpart is perfectly fine. Don’t lump him in with the crazies like Nora.”

His partner stuck her tongue out at him.

Nora panted in slight exhaustion. The straw doll was laid over the slowly dissolving arm.

With a final sigh of relief, Nora said, “We won.”

[][][]

The scene flashed back to the countryside.

When I was in first grade, Ruda-chan moved to our village from Tokyo.

A young Nora was shown kicking a rock. Surprisingly, her hair was dark brown instead of her normal orange.

“Awwwwww! Nora was so cute~” Jaune cooed, much to Nora’s embarrassment.

“I thought Friend Nora’s hair was orange? Why does her counterpart’s younger self have a different hair colour?” Penny asked.

“She probably dyes her hair orange,” Blake said offhandedly. “Different universe, different hair colour.”

Nora stared in awe at the beautiful Ruda as she moved in. Ruda smiled at the young girl which had her smiling in return.

She was cute as a doll, and as kind as a nun. Child Nora was handed a Christmas sticker book by Ruda which had her smiling in happiness. Yet Ruda-chan was ostracized by the villagers.

“She thinks country folk are dumb,” they said, letting themselves get paranoid, and in the end…they drove her out. Child Nora stood in front of the Ruda’s empty home that was now up for sale. The white van from earlier was shown again, covered in insults. Calling it sickening wouldn’t be enough.

“Bullying someone into leaving just because she moved in from the big city? Did they think she was arrogant or something?” Weiss asked with a sneer.

“Probably,” replied Ren. “It’s a harmful stereotype born out preconceived notions about people who live in cities, and their opinions of the countryside. Sometimes, it’s plain jealousy.”

“Either way, it’s a terrible thing to subject someone to,” Pyrrha added with a frown.

She brought all these homemade sweets I’d never heard of and said, “The ones from the bakery are even better,” with a smile as she treated me to them. Child Nora was shown hanging out with Ruda, eating sweets and having a fun time.

If I had stayed in that village…

“Good thing she didn’t…” Nora muttered under her breath.

[][][]

The scene cut back to the present.

“This is why I told you it’s dangerous to go alone and you need to take it seriously!” Jaune said, exasperated.

“You never said it was dangerous to go alone!” was Nora’s rebuttal.

“I…didn’t?”

“You have a sh*tty memory,” Jaune deadpanned.

They all snorted at the shade he threw at his counterpart.

Nora switched topics, pointing at the broken wall incredulously. “And what have you been eating that lets you punch through a wall with your bare hand?!”

“It wasn’t reinforced concrete!”

“Like that’s supposed to make it better!” Weiss cried.

Yang shrugged nonchalantly. “I mean, I’m sure I could do that.”

“Without Aura?” Blake asked with a quirked brow.

Yang mock-pouted.

“Even if it was, that’d still be impossible for most people!”

The kid chuckled nervously at the duo’s argument.

“I feel bad for the kid stuck between them,” Ren chuckled.

“Most people? You know you’ve asked me plenty of questions already, but why did you come to Jujutsu Tech?” asked Jaune.

“Why? Because I hate the countryside, and I wanted to live in Tokyo!” she shouted determinedly as she pointed to herself.

Jaune was taken aback by her reason. “Eh?!”

She clasped her hands together with a cute and innocent face. “This was the only way I could move to the city without having to worry about money!”

“I wonder how much jujutsu sorcerers get paid,” Yang said.

“What makes you think they get paid?” asked Weiss.

“You really think any sensible person would willingly fight curses without some financial compensation?”

Penny nodded in agreement. “Monetary incentive has always been an effective tool for motivating people to work. It’s the same with Huntsmen and Huntresses; some are only in it for the money.”

“Doesn’t this mean that the government is aware of curses and jujutsu sorcerers?” Nora asked.

“Possibly,” Ren replied. “Or maybe they’re a privately funded organization.”

“You can risk your life over that?”

“I can.” She looked back at the surprised teen which a genuine smile. “After all, it means being true to myself.”

If I’d stayed in that village, I’d be as good as dead. She remembered her fond memories of Ruda. Ruda-chan, I made it to Tokyo. If we ever meet here, take me to that bakery you mentioned.

Pyrrha sighed wistfully. “I hope they reunite.”

“Same,” said Nora.

Nora stroked the kid’s head. “So as far as that goes, I’m grateful to you, too. There wouldn’t have been a bright future if I had died or I had been the only one to survive. Thanks,” she said with a smile, and walked off.

“Well, having a more serious reason doesn’t make anyone better than the rest,” said Jaune.

She spread her arms out and shook her head. “Okay, I’ve given you my thanks, so that’s all over! We’re even now!”

“What’s wrong with her?” he deadpanned.

“A lot. Where does one even begin?” Ren sighed dramatically.

Nora tackled him, turning them into a tangle of limbs and hearty laughter.

[][][]

Sunset bathed the sky in an orange glow signifying the end of the day.

“I live over there! Thanks again!” the kid said to Gojo and Ren who escorted the kid home. They waved to each other as he ran off.

Meanwhile, Jaune and Nora sat on the building stairs, waiting for their classmate and teacher to return. Nora tapped her foot impatiently while Jaune looked bored and tired of the incessant tapping.

“Did you know I get into a foul mood when I’m hungry?” she grumbled.

Yang snorted. “Who doesn’t?”

“A hungry man is an angry man,” said Ruby. She interrupted Penny before she could correct her. “I know it’s an oversimplification of what the saying means but it works.”

When are you not in a foul mood? Jaune thought.

“When I’m not hungry, duh,” Nora scoffed.

“Good Joseph!” Gojo called out as he and Ren returned. “We made sure the kid got home.”

Jaune and Nora stood up in anticipation of Gojo’s next question.

“Now shall we go grab some food?”

“Steak!” Jaune yelled at the same time as Nora’s “Sushi!”, imagining their glorious meals.

“Now I’m craving sushi,” Ren mumbled.

Blake overheard him and subtly licked her lips, also now craving sushi.

“Leave it all to me!” Gojo agreed. “And you, Ren?”

Ren ignored them, too busy scrolling on his phone.

“Okay, let’s go,” said Gojo, herding the other two away much to Ren’s chagrin.

They all chuckled at the boy’s expense.

The four walked together in silence for a few moments.

“Oh, I forgot about my biggest haul of the day,” said Nora, remembering her stuff in the locker at Harajuku. “Hey, you, go fetch my things,” she ordered Jaune.

The aforesaid boy complained. “Huh? Why should I do it? I thought we were even.”

“We won thanks to my cursed energy. Got a problem with that?”

“What about my raw strength?”

“Your monstrous strength from eating weird sh*t?” she asked, referring to Salem’s finger.

“Without his monstrous strength you wouldn’t have defeated the curse and saved the kid!” Jaune argued in his counterpart’s defense.

Nora blew her tongue at him. “I’m sure Gojo would have saved the kid from any serious harm.”

“How do you know that? She covers her eyes with a blindfold!”

“And yet she can see better than you can that we were never in any real danger!”

Pyrrha and Ren released exasperated but amused sighs at their banter.

“It’s not just that! Right, Ren?” Ren refused to respond, choosing to brood behind Gojo. “Huh? What’s the matter, Ren?”

“Nothing.”

“He’s pouting because he didn’t get to join in,” said Gojo.

“Somebody’s jealous~!” Yang and Nora teased.

Nora chuckled mischievously. “What a child.”

Ren grunted in annoyance while Jaune gave a genuine and heartfelt laugh.

[][][]

“Log: July 2018.” A report was being typed out. “West Tokyo, Eishuu Juvenile Detention Center. In the sky above the exercise yard.”

“Hey…” one called out. “What’s that?” he asked, looking up.

Another inmate looked up in confusion. “What?”

“Unnamed Apparition of Potential Special-Grade. Its curse womb was witnessed by several non-jujutsu sorcerers.”

“Unnamed Apparition?” Ruby parroted, confused. “And what’s a curse womb?”

“Special-grade?!” Weiss was more concerned with the fact that said curse womb, whatever it was, was a special-grade. “The last special-grade object we saw…”

They all grimaced at the reminder of Jaune eating the finger to save Ren which placed a death sentence on his head.

Penny placated their worries. “Let’s just keep watching. The episode is almost over, so we can discuss after it.”

“That up there! Looks like an egg.”

The camera panned up, showing the curse womb. It was a large misshapen thing wrapped in a transparent fluid sphere.

“Ewwww!” they cried, a distorted expression of disgust on their faces.

“What are you talking about?” The guy still couldn’t see it.

“How can his friend see it if he can’t?” Pyrrha asked.

“Maybe this is one of those special places other Ren talked about,” Nora responded. “The ones where you can see curses.”

“But it’s not perfect if that one dude still can’t see the curse womb,” Jaune added.

“Due to the emergency nature, three Jujutsu Tech first-years were dispatched to the scene, and one died.”

Whatever hype the trio felt when the report announced their dispatch died as soon as they heard the last part. They stared at the screen in horror even as the upbeat ending played on without a care.

“…what?” Pyrrha rasped, feeling choked up all of a sudden.

"One of us…is going to die?" Although she tried to, Nora couldn't disguise the fear and horror in her voice.

Ren and Jaune were as pale as a white sheet.

"Are you f*cking kidding me?!" Yang gasped.

Ruby looked close to fainting in shock. "I don't wanna watch our friends die."

Weiss gulped in an effort to hold in her nausea. "Which…which one of them…?"

"Definitely not Jaune's counterpart," Penny interrupted.

"Why?"

"Salem. We don't know the full extent of Salem's power or what her goals are, but I doubt she'd just sit by and watch her only vessel in a thousand years get killed. Especially without reassurance that she'd find another one."

"And she's a special-grade as well," Ren added. "I don't know much about this special-grade ranking or how they measure up against one another but it has to count for something."

"So Nora and Ren…?" Pyrrha couldn't bring herself to finish her question but Ren understood if the shaky sigh he let out was any indication.

"Mine and Nora's counterpart are most likely the ones who will die."

Whatever anyone was about to say died after what the screen said next: “Juju Stroll,” with a chibi Salem letting out a yawn.

"Ehn?"

“What’s this?”

Nora features darkened, her eyes looking at Jaune with a threatening expression. “Jaune. I’m going with paper.”

Her ominous tone had Jaune looking at her with a grimace, making a strangled sound. The two faced off, holding their arms to their sides.

“Are they playing rock-paper-scissors?” Weiss asked, brows raised.

“And she’s telling him her move? She’s not very good at it,” Ruby snigg*red.

“Nah, my counterpart knows what she’s doing.” Nora’s wide grin and Jaune’s red face had team RWBY guessing what was about to happen.

“Rock-paper-scissors!” They yelled in sync, throwing their arms forward. Nora threw up rock while Jaune foolishly believed her and picked scissors. Near them, Gojo and Ren were watching the spectacle.

Nora grinned in delight. “Oh, yeah!”

Excuses were spilling from Jaune’s lips before their sister team could make a comment. “I did-I mean, he did that on purpose! He let Nora win!”

Yang, Ruby and Nora’s laughter reached a new crescendo at his poor excuse. Weiss stared at him with a look of incredulity.

“Don’t tell me you are actually as bad as your counterpart at…rock-paper-scissors?”

“I’m not/He is!”

“Nora!” He groaned while his other two teammates tried-and failed-to muffle their chuckles. The traitors! “It-s just--I, sorry he probably thought it was like one of those reverse psychology things!”

“It was. And it worked on him,” Blake said dryly. “Perfectly. Which means it would definitely work on you, too.”

Pyrrha, shoulders still shaking with mirth, placed a comforting hand on his shoulder. “It’s okay to admit you’re bad at this game, Jaune.”

“I’m not,” he whined, pouting.

Gojo started speaking, ignoring the two and their antics, while looking down at her phone. "Sushi, huh? Guess we can go to the usual place in Ginza."

"Ginza, yahoo!" Nora cheered and danced.

Now that they'd decided their dinner, Jaune suggested something. "I want revolving sushi!"

Immediately, Nora got up in his face with a growl. "Ugh! Jaune, you're such a...Ugh! Ren, say something to him!" The boys just stood there, deadpanning at her screams.

"I'd rather get something that tastes good if we're going," Ren explained, noting Jaune's confused face. "Gojo-sensei's paying, anyway."

“Man, I wish we had a teacher that paid for our meals outside Beacon,” Ruby said, drooling at the mental imagery of a huge bowl of strawberries and cookies, all for her.

Yang snorted. “Can you imagine Miss Goodwitch doing that?”

Despite the logic, Jaune wasn't convinced. "Revolving sushi is its own thing, just like how yakisoba and instant yakisoba are different things!"

Ruby scratched her head. “I am so confused right now.”

“Yakisoba is basically a noodle stir-fried dish,” Blake explained to Ruby. “Revolving sushi is just plates of sushi carried on a conveyor belt past diners, who can take whatever they want.”

“Oh. That sounds cool.”

Yang sent a teasing look at her partner. “You a fan of revolving sushi, I take it?”

Blake rolled her eyes, not rising to the bait that was Yang’s joke about her love of fish. She liked fish because they tasted good, dammit, not because she was a cat Faunus!

"And I want to eat sushi." Nora nearly rolled her eyes at the pointless argument.

Jaune wasn’t done arguing his point. "Sushi's just a meal, but revolving sushi's a leisure activity! Like a theme park! Or TDL! Also, Nora, you said you were from the country too, so have you ever been to a revolving sushi place?!"

Nora let out a shocked gasped.

"My favorite is Sushi Go, but I'd go with Splendid Sushi for someone's first time," Gojo recommended.

Jaune grinned, glad to have one person on his side. "You get it, sensei!"

“Hey, why don’t we all go get sushi tomorrow?” Jaune asked suddenly.

Yang nodded in agreement. “Not a bad idea, Vomit boy,” she said, chuckling when he scowled at the nickname and continued, “and maybe after the Vytal Festival, we can all try this revolving sushi thing. It’d be a great way to unwind after everything.”

They all voiced their agreement.

"Hey, no one's said we're going yet." Nora retorted, nervously gazing at the three of them. She knew she was on the losing side of the conversation when Gojo sided with Jaune. Ren merely looked tired of the entire conversation and probably wouldn’t care where they ate as long as he got his fill and Gojo paid, like he said she would.

Jaune's voice changed from happy to serious in a second. "Nora, listen closely. At Splendid Sushi...the sushi comes to you on a bullet train."

Ren sweat dropped. “Well, that’s one way to explain it…”

“He’s exaggerating,” Pyrrha said with a snort.

"Wha-?!" Nora gasped, imagining a bullet train.

"Driver, this girl's never had revolving sushi before," Jaune said cheerfully, talking to the taxi driver. He was leaning outside the window dangerously, letting the wind flow through his hair. "Take us to the Splendid Sushi with the huge-ass parking lot along the interstate!"

A PSA on the screen read: “Please ride in cars properly and safely.”

They snorted at how casually he was leaning dangerously out of a moving car. Some laughed even louder when the PSA appeared onscreen.

“Well that was entertaining,” Weiss said.

“What even was that?” Yang asked. “Not that I’m complaining, I just wonder why it wasn’t put in the episode proper.”

Penny turned in response to Yang. “I think it’s an omake. It’s a term commonly used in Mistralian media to refer to bonus or extra content included alongside the main content.”

“Once again, it was entertaining. At least it was a nice distraction from that horrible ending,” Blake said with a sigh.

The general mood in the room plummeted at the reminder of what was to come in the next few episodes.

Jaune rubbed his face with a frustrated grunt. “Worrying over it won’t do anything to change the outcome. Let’s just keep moving forward.”

“Agreed,” Ruby said. “Anyone have any comments to add before we start the next episode? Anything you’d like to point out?”

Upon receiving none, she clicked on the next episode.

Chapter 5: Curse Womb Must Die

Chapter Text

The episode opened up at the detention center. Dark clouds blotted out the sun’s rays and little droplets of rain drizzled onto the people still outside.

“Our window verified the curse womb three hours ago,” the assistant supervisor, Bartholomew Oobleck informed the trio of students. “Once 90 percent were successfully evacuated, they made the call to seal off the center. Citizens within a 500-meter radius have been evacuated, as well.”

“Mr. Oobleck, question.” Jaune raised a hand. “What’s a ‘window’ here?”

“A window is a member of Jujutsu Tech who can see curses,” Oobleck answered. “They aren’t sorcerers, though.”

“How does that work?” Nora wondered.

“Not everyone is cut out for this kind of life. Even in our world, not everyone with unlocked Auras has the physical or mental strength necessary to be Huntsmen,” Pyrrha replied.

“Oh, okay.”

Oobleck returned to the briefing. “Let’s continue. Detainee Block 2. At present, five detainees remain there with the curse womb. If this curse womb is the type that metamorphoses, we predict it will become a special-grade curse spirit.”

Weiss grimaced. “So it truly is a special-grade.” They weren’t fully clear on what exactly being special-grade entailed but it wasn’t hard to contextualize it based on the little information they had on the grading system. That, and their only experience with a special-grade object, made their stomachs turn in discomfort.

“So, a cursed womb is kinda like… a baby curse?” Ruby wondered.

“Something like that.” Jaune hummed thoughtfully. “Metamorphosis means change in the form of something or someone. In insects, it’s basically a transformation from a smaller, immature form to an adult form. I guess the same applies to curses.”

Nora nodded in agreement. “But how can they tell how powerful a curse becomes just by the curse womb?”

“They most likely have a way of detecting that. Maybe they have ways of sensing its cursed energy levels and grading it based on that.”

“I think we’re missing something,” said Penny, cutting in right after Ren’s reply. “Mr. Oobleck said, ‘if this curse womb is the type that metamorphoses’ implying that not all curse wombs undergo metamorphosis.”

“Or not all curses start out as curse wombs,” Blake added.

Special-grade… The very idea that they might potentially go up against a special-grade curse sent chills down Ren and Nora’s spines.

Not Jaune, though, who asked, “Hey, so…I still don’t really understand what ‘special-grade’ means.”

His friends sighed exasperatedly.

“To be fair, he’s still a newbie. Of course there is a lot he’s unaware of that feel like basic knowledge to them,” Pyrrha said, chuckling.

Weiss scoffed. “Or Gojo is just a lazy teacher.”

“Then allow me to explain it so even idiots can understand,” Oobleck interrupted so casually as if he didn’t just insult Jaune. A chart titled “If Conventional Weapons Were Effective Against Cursed Spirits” appeared onscreen for the viewers. “First, there’s grade 4. A wooden bat is enough for them. Grade 3. If you have a handgun, you can rest easy. Grade 2. It’ll be a close call with a shotgun. Grade 1. Even a tank may be insufficient. Then there’s special-grade. Let’s say you might be on even footing if you carpet bomb it with cluster bombs.”

Their eyes widened upon hearing the descriptions.

“Whoa,” Nora gasped. “That’s insane!”

“Does this mean I can exorcise a grade 2 cursed spirit?” Yang wondered. Her fighting style revolved mostly around the use of her shotgun gauntlets to amplify her already strong blows. And while she knew she was strong (second behind only Pyrrha in their year), she knew her damage output wasn’t on the same level as that of a tank—and even that may be insufficient against a grade 1 cursed spirit.

Pyrrha eyed her friends and comrades in the room. “I think most of us can take on a grade 2 cursed spirit,” she said.

“And some of us can barely handle grade 3,” Jaune grumbled. He was under no illusions that he was part of those capable of handling a grade 2 curse. Not on his own, at least.

“Chin up, Jauney.” Nora playfully nudged Jaune. “At least you’re better than you were at the start of the year!”

He rolled his eyes at her backhanded comment but his lips curled into a small smile.

Ruby nudged her newest friend excitedly. “You can definitely handle a grade 1, Penny. Maybe even special-grade.”

While Ruby was being crushed hugged by Penny, the rest of her team nodded, remembering the crazy amount of skill and firepower that Penny displayed at the docks. They almost dreaded having to face-off against her in the Vytal Festival.

“I wonder, do jujutsu sorcerers have grades like sorcerers do?” Ren asked.

“They most likely do,” Blake replied. “Otherwise why bother with the classifications and threat levels in the first place?”

“That’s real bad!” Jaune exclaimed.

“Normally a jujutsu sorcerer on par with he cursed spirit would take on the mission,” said Ren. “On a day like today, that would be Gojo-sensei.”

Many eyes widened at the meaning behind his statement.

“Mom is a special-grade sorcerer?” Ruby gasped in delight.

“f*ck yeah!” Yang yelled, ignoring Pyrrha’s sharp look.

Weiss rolled her eyes. “It’s very obvious when you remember that she refers to herself as ‘the strongest’.”

“I-I see.” Jaune’s head swiveled, looking around for the woman herself. “So where is Gojo-sensei?”

“Away on business.”

Jaune groaned. “Of course she is.”

“Huh?”

Ren elaborated. “She’s not someone who should be loafing around at the school in the first place.” He remembered Gojo’s last words to him before leaving: “Don’t expect any souvenirs.”

Oobleck chose that moment to cut into their discussion. “Unfortunately, we’re constantly short-handed in this business. You’ll often have to undertake missions beyond your power. The current case, however, is an abnormal one, and most urgent. Do not fight under any circ*mstances. If you encounter a special-grade, your options are to either run or die.”

Nora and Jaune gasped, taken aback by the brutal honesty.

Jaune, Nora, and Ren audibly gulped. Their stomachs twisted into knots at the realization that this was where one of them would most likely die.

“I think this mission goes above being ‘beyond their power’,” Pyrrha said nervously. “If it’s that serious, surely they can pull other more appropriate sorcerers from whatever they’re doing for this!”

Blake frowned in distaste. “You heard him. They are constantly short-handed in this business. They don’t have a lot of options.”

“Please just listen to your fears. Do not forget that your mission here is strictly the verification and rescue of survivors.”

“So they don’t have to fight.” Ruby sighed in relief. “Just get in, look for survivors and get out. Simple search-and -rescue.”

“Hopefully it stays that easy,” Yang said.

Ren stayed mute. It seemed some of them had already forgotten that either Jaune, Nora, or himself were going to die. Not that he was going to remind them; at the back of his mind, there still remained a sliver of hope that maybe all of them might make it out alive.

“Excuse me!” A woman’s voice cried out, drawing their attention. “Excuse me, where’s Tadashi?!” She was barely being held back by other assistant supervisors.

“Stop! Stay back! Please stay back!”

“Is Tadashi…Is my son Tadashi all right?!”

It didn’t take them long to realize that her son was one of the detainees yet to be evacuated from the center.

“That poor woman,” Yang murmured.

Jaune’s lips trembled and tears threatened to spill from his eyes at the woman’s sorrow. Oobleck moved to block his view while his colleagues tried to persuade her to step back.

“She’s a guardian who was here for a visit,” he silently informed the teens. Facing the woman, he raised his voice. “Please step away. There’s a possibility that someone has spread poisonous gas throughout the center.” The cover-up story slipped through his lips so smoothly; this wasn’t his first time doing this, after all. “We cannot share any more details at this time.”

“No…” The heartbreak was too much for the poor woman and she fell to her knees, face covered to hide her tears. “Why? Why is this happening?!”

Their hearts ached for the grieving mother. Jaune, Ren, and Nora, in particular, hoped that Tadashi was fine and that their counterparts saved him (and other detainees), for his mother’s sake.

Jaune stilled his trembling lips, face hardened with determination as he cracked his knuckles. “Ren, Nora. We’re gonna save them!”

“Of course we are,” Nora agreed.

Ren huffed in agreement.

“Hell yeah!” Nora and Ruby cheered

“Give that curse hell!” Yang added.

Weiss quirked an eyebrow as the opening played. “You do remember that their mission is solely search-and-rescue? They’re supposed to avoid combat at all costs.”

That caused the buxom blonde to slump. “Spoilsport.”

Episode 4: Curse Womb Must Die

“Be careful,” Oobleck said as they moved for Block 2. He raised his right hand to form a sign. “I’ll put up my Veil. Emerge from darkness, blacker than darkness. Purify that which is impure,” he chanted.

Above the building, a dark blue substance appeared. Jaune gaped as the ink-like liquid rapidly fell around them, enclosing the building and parts of the surrounding area.

“It’s becoming night!” He looked at the Veil in awe.

“It’s a Veil,” Ren explained. “There’s a residential area nearby, so this barrier conceals us from the outside world.”

“That’s cool. And smart,” Blake commented.

“But won’t people see the barrier?” Ruby asked before smacking her forehead. “Never mind, if they can’t see curses, they probably can’t see the Veil.”

“That’s incredible!”

“Ignorant.” Nora deadpanned.

“Give him a break, he’s new to this,” Jaune deadpanned.

Ren clasped his hands together, forming the shadow puppet of a dog’s head. “Divine Dogs!” His shadow lengthened and inky black goo bubbled and coalesced, forming his white dog.

Jaune looked at the dog in fascination while Ren spoke. “He’ll let us know if the curse gets close.”

“Oh, I see!” Jaune crouched and began petting the dog. “Good boy, good boy! We’re counting on you, okay?”

The door creaked open and Divine Dog White entered first.

“Let’s go.”

The trio followed after the shikigami, running through the rusted hallway before coming to a stop when Ren halted, holding out his arm. “Wait!”

Jaune and Nora gasped when they took the cause of Ren’s sudden instruction. What was supposed to be a two-story dorm on the inside was built like a city maze; metal pipes and walkways ran haphazardly throughout the entire structure with no end in sight.

“What the hell?” Blake gasped. “What sort of dorm is this?”

“Clearly not a normal one if even they looked shocked by it. It’s probably the work of the curse,” Ren replied.

“What is this?” Nora asked.

“Wh-What’s going on in here?” Jaune stared wide-eyed at the pipe maze. “This is a two-story dorm, isn’t it?”

Nora stuttered, beads of sweat dripping down her face. “C-C-Calm down! It’s a maisonette.”

No, it’s not. Ren looked on in horror, having realized what they were standing in. It’s the deployment of an Innate Domain due to cursed energy. It’s my first time seeing one this big.

Yang groaned. “Oh great, more reveals that we have no explanations for.”

“Yet. You can’t expect to be spoon-fed every little detail all at once, do you?” Weiss chided her.

“Well, no…But I’d still like to know what an Innate Domain is. And why it’s such a big deal that Ren is spooked.”

“Maybe an Innate Domain is like a pocket dimension,” Penny theorized. “That would explain why the interior looks drastically different from a normal two-story dorm.”

“It could also be a highly elaborate illusion,” Ren added with a shrug.

He gasped, coming to another crippling realization. “Where’s the door?!” he asked, frantically looking back the direction they came in from.

The other two looked back in confusion before being taken aback by the network of pipes that had materialized where the door was.

Jaune let out a long-suffering groan. “Oh, come on!”

“Now how do they get out!?” Nora exclaimed.

Ruby shivered as she got horrific flashbacks to the horror movies Yang made her watch back on Patch.

“Th-The door’s gone!” Jaune cried.

Nora pointed at the pipes in alarm. “How?! We just came in through here, didn’t we?!”

Jaune nodded and the two moved in a circle singing: “What do we do? Ah, what do we do about this?”

“It’ll be fine.” Ren interrupted their panic. “The dog remembers the scent of the entrance.”

They heaved a sigh of relief.

“Thank the Brothers,” Pyrrha said, slumping against Jaune. It was bad enough that there was a potential special-grade on the loose, getting trapped with no means of escape was even worse.

“Oh, my!” The duo cooed as they began petting the dog. “Good boy! Have some jerky! Have all the jerky you want!”

The dog ate up their praise, tongue hanging out and tail wagging happily.

“Good doggy!” Ruby and Weiss cooed at the screen. They wished she could join the duo and pet the dog.

“Now I miss Zwei,” Yang huffed, wishing her adorable corgi was here.

Blake glared at her teammates, unable to fathom how they found that…demon, cute. It was a monster!

“You are way too calm!” Ren grouched.

“You really are dependable, Ren,” Jaune said, much to the boy’s surprise. “Thanks to you, we’ll be able to rescue people and save ourselves, too.”

Ren kept mute for a moment. He regained his composure, an unreadable expression on his face. “Let’s keep moving.”

They kept walking through the dark hallways, Divine Dog White leading the way to sniff out the curse. Their journey led them to a large grey room with grates leading to sewers in the walls.

Ren stopped upon noticing something in a corner, which Jaune and Nora picked up on, staring at it in shock. Jaune ran ahead, coming to a halt in front of a gruesome scene. Corpses, some mangled beyond recognition. He gasped in horror while Nora muttered, “Atrocious.”

The gruesome scene was enough to cause some to lose their appetites.

“My god,” Pyrrha gasped, hands covering her mouth to keep her food down.

Blake grimaced, stomach churning uncomfortably. While a bit more used to death and corpses because of the White Fang, seeing the unnaturally mangled corpses nearly made her retch.

“And this is what Miss Gojo meant by ‘the better end of outcomes’,” Penny muttered. If this was the better end, she didn’t want to know what the worst end was like.

“That’s…three people, right?” Ren asked.

Jaune crouched in front of the only seemingly intact (the lower body was nowhere to be found) corpse. He pulled at the uniform, seeing a name tag: Okazaki Tadashi.

“sh*t, it’s the woman’s son,” Yang noted. What a horrible way to go out. Did he even see the curse? she wondered, remembering that he couldn’t see the womb in the sky.

He gasped, the words of the mother from earlier ringing in his mind. “Is Tadashi…Is my son Tadashi all right?!”

“Let’s take this body back,” he said.

“Huh?”

He explained. “It’s that woman’s son.”

“But…” Nora wasn’t too convinced that was a good idea.

“His face isn’t too badly mangled. His mother won’t accept it if we tell her he’s dead, but don’t have a body.”

“I’m not so sure that’s a good idea…” Weiss began before Ruby rounded on her.

“How could you say that!?” she practically yelled in the heiress’ face. “They were unable to save him but they can save his body. His mother deserves this, at least!”

“I’m looking at the practicality of lugging around a body while looking for two more people who may or may not also be alive. Not to mention the special-grade curse that is also lurking in the detention center!” the heiress retorted.

“I’m with Weiss on this one.” Blake schooled her features as Ruby looked at her with a betrayed expression. “Have you forgotten that their mission is the verification and rescue of survivors, not the verification and movement of dead people?”

“That’s cold, Blake,” Yang muttered.

“She’s right,” Ren said, wading into the conversation. “And who’s to say they can’t return for the bodies?”

Jaune shook his head. “You’re assuming they can find their way back. They turned around and the door they came in through was gone! Who’s to say they’ll find the bodies later?”

“I-I understand your sentiments, Jaune,” Pyrrha began, “but they’re already gone. Even if they can’t retrieve the bodies now, they can always report their findings and have more qualified people return and deal with this. They’re already out of their depth, their main focus should be on surviving and not ending up as casualties, too.”

Ren dragged him away from the body by his hood. “We have to find and verify two more,” he reminded Jaune. “Leave that body behind.”

“Quit joking around!” Jaune replied, baffled by Ren’s words. “We turned around, and the way we got in here was gone! We won’t be able to come back for it later.”

Jaune nodded, glad his counterpart agreed with him.

The shikigami user was getting more and more irritated by Jaune’s stubbornness. “I didn’t say to come back for it! I said to leave it behind!” He carried on, ignoring his teammate’s shocked look. “I have no intention of risking my own life to save someone I had no intention of saving in the first place!”

“Huh?” Jaune muttered, brows furrowed in confusion.

“The hell does he mean by that?” Yang asked with a frown.

Jaune grabbed Ren’s collar, now just as pissed. “No intention of saving him? What do you mean?!”

“This is a juvenile detention center. Jujutsu sorcerers are granted access to all the information about the scene beforehand. This Okazaki Tadashi hit a little girl on her way home from school while driving without a license. It was his second offense of driving without a license.”

“Oh…”

The upset ones deflated when they heard his explanation.

Jaune’s breathed hitched sharply but Ren plowed on. “I know you’re stuck on saving lots of people and guiding them to proper deaths. But what are you going to do when someone you saves kills someone else in the future?”

“It’s not like I don’t get the reasoning but…wouldn’t that be condemning people for crimes they haven’t committed? How do you know for sure they will kill someone in the future?” Nora asked.

“You don’t,” Penny responded. “Unless you can see into the future, it is impossible to say for sure whether or not a person will commit crimes later on. ‘Killing’ someone preemptively for actions they haven’t yet taken raises so many ethical concerns that it–”

“This is an insightful conversation...” Yang cut in, “…but can they have it AFTER they get the hell outta there!”

“Crap, the cursed spirit is still in there,” Jaune swore.

Eyes brimming with tears, Jaune shouted, “Then why did you bother saving me!?”

Ren winced, understanding why the boy would feel that way after hearing his counterpart’s admission.

“Now is not the time for this,” Weiss muttered. She felt so antsy, barely managing to sit still.

“Cut it out!” Nora yelled, stomping over to the pair. “Christ, what are you two doing?! You’re both idiots! Think about the time and place if you–”

Whatever Nora was going to say was cut off when she suddenly fell through a shadowy portal beneath her. That drew their attentions off one another and to the empty space their third teammate had occupied.

“f*ck!”

“Nora!” Jaune and Ruby yelled in a panic.

Ren’s blood ran cold and he subconsciously gripped Nora’s hand tight. His racing heart calmed when she squeezed back but it didn’t get rid of the worry he felt for her counterpart.

“Nora?” Jaune called while Ren wore a horrified expression.

No way! Divine Dogs should have sensed the curse! Ren gazed at the wall across from him, sighting the white dog. Or what was left of it, that is. It had been decapitated, its head embedded in the wall. Blood dripped down from its eyes and mouth, making it look like a horrific wall mount.

Ruby shrieked. “The curse did that?!”

“How did that happen and none of them saw or heard anything?” Weiss screamed.

“It doesn’t matter, they need to get out of there now!”

He gasped in horror, calling out the similarly shocked Jaune from his stupor. “Jaune! We’re running! We’ll search for Nora la–”

His words caught in his throat. He and Jaune froze in their tracks as the special-grade curse abruptly appeared next to them.

“Ah!” The curse’s sudden appearance caused the viewers to jump and scream.

“Holy sh*t!” Jaune gasped, clutching his chest.

It was light grey, with a muscled figure, and four squiggly, black lines on its face, with two surrounding the round eyes. Its mouth was set into a closed teeth smile.

The sheer intensity of its cursed energy washed over them, freezing them in place. It was all they could do to even breathe, much less move.

There’s no mistake. It’s a special-grade. Ren thought, gritting his teeth in horror. I can’t move.

Move! Move! Move! Move! Move! Jaune repeated frantically in his head.

The tension in the room was so palpable, one could cut through it with a knife. It was as if the special-grade curse was also in the room, as the fear that gripped their counterparts settled on them as well.

He remembered his grandfather’s last words to him: “Help others.”

Spurred on by those words, Jaune shakily grabbed Slaughter Demon’s handle, unsheathing it and swinging at the curse with a yell.

“Yes! Kill it!” Yang yelled encouragingly.

It all happened so fast. One second, Jaune was swinging for the curse’s head. The next, the blade, and his still attached hand, landed a ways behind him, breaking on impact.

“Jaune?” Ren uttered, staring wide-eyed at his friend.

Jaune, too, looked on in shock at the bloody stump where his hand formerly was. “Huh?”

It was silent for a moment as everyone processed what just happened. Then the room exploded in a cacophony of noise.

“His/Your hand!” Nora and Ruby screamed, eyes flicking from onscreen Jaune’s bloody stump and their Jaune’s hand which was being squeezed harshly by Pyrrha.

“Oh, my God,” Weiss gasped.

Yang was also gaping in shock. She rubbed her hand, trying to ignore the weird feeling of deja vu in her gut. “H-How do they plan on fixing this if they get out of there?”

It didn’t escape Jaune’s notice that she used if, not when. It looked like his counterpart was either facing death or a future without a hand.

[][][]

Elsewhere, Nora walked around in a very dark room that seemed to have no end in sight. “Damn it, where am I? It’s so dark, I can’t see a thing.”

A sudden spike of cursed energy put her on alert, readying her hammer and nails. The curse’s presence! Behind her, multiple nightmarish floating masks crept up to her, laughing in a child’s voice. How can there be so many?!

“Ah, crap,” Nora swore.

“They don’t look that strong,” Ren muttered. “Then again, that is probably why there are so many of them.”

Ruby shivered. “And they somehow look creepier than the other one.”

[][][]

The scene switched to Ren falling down a narrow path. Upon noticing he was reaching the bottom, he clapped his hands together in the shape of wings.

“Nue!” His shadows morphed into a large owl-like creature with orange feathers, a white skull mask and human-like teeth.

“Wow, big bird!” Ruby gushed. “And that was a smooth entrance. Don’t you think so, Weiss?”

The heiress huffed but responded all the same. “It did look cool,” she admitted, impressed.

“Is his technique being a zookeeper?” Yang asked with a snort.

It caught him in its talons, flapping its large wings to decelerate and drop him safely on the ground. He ran harshly down the corridor, not slowing down for a single moment.

Don’t die on me, Jaune and Nora!

He flashed back to himself and Jaune confronting the curse after it cut off the latter’s hand.

“I can’t escape after it’s gotten this close!” Jaune said, tying his wrist with his belt to form a makeshift tourniquet. “Hey, Salem! If I die, you die too, right? If you don’t want that, then help me out!”

The lower eye slit opened up and his cheek morphed into a mouth. “Nope!” Salem answered, grinning in amusem*nt.

Blake sighed. “I had a feeling she would say that.”

“Is she crazy? She does know that if Jaune dies, she dies with him, right!?” Ruby practically screamed.

Her question was answered a second later. “Even if the parts of me inside you die, there are eighteen other fragments of my soul. Still, irritatingly enough, I don’t have control of this body. If you want to switch, go ahead and switch. But once you do, I’ll kill that brat before the cursed spirit can! Then I’ll go for that woman!” she said, referring to Nora. “She’s a lively one. I’ll have fun with her.”

“You bitch!” Yang spat, glowering at the woman.

Her glare was mirrored by Ren’s, who also squeezed Nora’s hand reassuringly.

“I’m not going to let you do that,” Jaune growled.

“I bet. But if you’re too focused on me, your friends are gonna die.”

The cursed spirit inhaled and spat out a glob of cursed energy. It exploded in-between Jaune and Ren, kicking up dust and debris.

It’s not jujutsu. Ren was barely aware of his surroundings, ears ringing from the explosion. He just unleashed pure cursed energy. He stared at the giggling curse, extremely pleased with itself.

“It…looks like it’s having fun,” Penny noted. “It can sense that they’re weaker than it and is mocking them for it.”

“Ren! Ren! Ren!” The aforementioned boy snapped back to his senses after the third scream. He turned to Jaune.

“Take Nora and get out of here! I’ll keep this one busy until you two are out. As soon as you two are out, give me some kind of signal. Once you do…I’ll switch with Salem.” Jaune steeled his face with resigned determination.

“You know you can’t do that! Not with only one arm against a special-grade!” Ren countered.

“Look closer.” They looked back at the still giggling curse. It was clear that the curse was having the time of its life and barely paying them any attention. “It’s obviously toying with us. I can at least buy us some time.”

“No!”

“Ren!” Jaune looked pleadingly at his friend. “Please.”

In the present, Ren continued his run down the corridor, face twisted in frustration and guilt.

Ren and Jaune sighed morosely at how bleak their counterparts’ situation was. The latter had a bad feeling in his gut that he wasn’t going to make it out of this mission alive, even with Salem’s help.

He summoned Divine Dog Black, the shikigami running alongside its summoner.

“Find Nora!” The dog ran ahead to fulfill its orders.

[][][]

Back with Nora, she shakily held up a nail. “This is my last one,” she said, a terrified smile plastered on her face.

She looked up at the multiple masks still floating around her despite the mountain of destroyed ones she stood atop. “I should’ve brought a lot more with me.”

Blake’s eyes widened at the large amount of destroyed masks. “Not bad,” she said, impressed.

“Other me just needs to hold on long enough for Ren to get there,” Nora said, nervously wringing her hands.

[][][]

The cursed spirit ripped off the fabric covering its legs, still giggling.

“Trying to say it’s easier to move around in your underwear?” Jaune taunted. Inside, his thoughts raced to find a way to hold off the curse. What do I do, though? I have no clue how to use cursed energy.

“Then why were you sent on this mission in the first place?!” Pyrrha practically yelled.

But for now, that’s fine. I just have to buy ti–

A barrier of cursed energy slammed into him unexpectedly, blasting him into a wall. He slowly dislodged himself from the concrete, blood dripping from his nose and mouth. What was that? A cursed energy barrier?

“Jaune!” All his friends screamed, fear coursing through their bodies.

He looked up just in time to see the curse fire another blast of cursed energy at him. The force threw him through the wall and into another room, landing and rolling harshly on one of the bridges. He blacked out from the pain.

Ren found himself feeling second-hand guilt for leaving Other Jaune behind. It didn’t matter that it wasn’t literally him, but another version of him, the guilt still wracked him all the same.

“Dammit,” Nora cursed, chewing on her bottom lip in worry.

The curse began charging up another attack, rousing Jaune from his slumber. He quickly rose to his feet, and having nothing to counter with, he held his hand and stump out in an attempt to stop the assault. The cursed energy blast expanded and it was all Jaune could do to stand his ground, even as the heat sheared off the top of his fingers. Tears welled up at the pain but he grit his teeth and held strong.

Blake gasped, suddenly reminded of a familiar scene. “In the opening…”

Jaune’s eyes widened, also remembering this particular scene from the opening song. At the time, he’d assumed it was metaphorical, but now he was seeing it literally play out.

Ow, ow, ow…It hurts, it hurts, it hurts! Why am I…If only I hadn’t picked up that finger back then…If I hadn’t eaten it…If only…If only…

A choked sob escaped Pyrrha, and it took all her strength not to break down into tears. Jaune sighed, pulling her into a one-armed embrace, even as Nora and Ren moved closer till their bodies were practically touching.

Tears streamed down Ruby’s face at the pain Jaune’s counterpart was going through. Not even Penny’s cold grip or Yang’s warm embrace from behind was enough to soften the impact of her second best friend’s mental and physical pain.

Weiss gritted her teeth in frustration as she witnessed Arc’s breakdown. She cursed the higher-ups who thought it was a bright idea to send three FIRST-YEARS to face a potential special-grade. She cursed the cursed spirit that was responsible for Jaune’s current predicament. She cursed Salem and her selfishness. And finally, she cursed the fact that Summer Gojo was not around to protect her students. Angry tears pooled at the corner of her eyes but she hastily blinked them away.

Stop! Don’t think! Jaune squeezed his eyes shut. No! No! I want to run! I want to run! I want to run! I don’t want to die! If I died here…If I actually died…Would that be a proper death?!

“Sticking to your ideals to the end, huh,” Blake remarked with a bittersweet smile.

Don’t think!” he screamed as the blast finally knocked him off his feet.

“Help others.”

At this point, those words are more like a curse, Ren thought.

As the rubble flew alongside Jaune, he had only one thought: Have I…gotten so weak?

Jaune sighed empathetically. It was easy for him to relate with his counterpart’s doubts about his strength. Even easier because, unlike his counterpart, he had no special skills or superhuman abilities that set him apart from others.

Makes me wonder why Headmaster Ozpin chose me to lead.

[][][]

Nora’s hammer lay broken on the floor. Her face was covered with bruises. “I know your face now,” she told the mushroom curse that held her upside down. “I swear I’ll curse you!”

“Ah, crap,” Nora groaned. “I guess this is it for me.”

“Don’t say that!” Ren exclaimed.

The curse slowly lowered her into its open mouth but before it could do so, a long tongue coiled around her, dragging her away. At the same time, a huge black and white snake bit down on the mushroom-like curse.

“Whoa!”

“Are the curses fighting for her?” Weiss wondered.

Nora pointed dramatically at the screen. “Yes! Fight for the honour of who gets to devour my tasty self!”

“You do realize that’s a bad thing, right?” Jaune asked dryly.

Nora was dragged into the mouth of a large frog shikigami standing next to Ren. “We’re escaping, Nora!”

She sighed despite the relief flooding her body. “I hate frogs, you know,” she replied tiredly.

“Yeah, well, sorry!”

Their shoulders sagged in relief as they visibly relaxed.

“Saved by Zookeeper Ren,” Yang said with her trademark snark.

The boy in question--well, this world’s him--deadpanned at her. “I’m offended on my counterpart’s behalf.”

She stuck her tongue out at him.

“I wonder how many shikigamis he has,” Penny mused.

[][][]

The curse landed on the bridge a few feet away from Jaune’s slumped form, a sinister grin on its face upon seeing its handiwork.

The mood in the room collectively plummeted.

“I was so full of myself,” the boy mumbled. “I thought I was strong. I thought I was at least strong enough to choose when I died. But I was wrong.” He stared at the stump of his fingers. “I’m weak!” Jaune shakily rose to his feet. “I’m far too weak!” He covered his face as he wept in despair. “Augh! I don’t want to die! No! No way! But…I am going to die!” A proper death? Yeah, right! Don’t be naive!

With every declaration that spewed from his lips, the depressing atmosphere got even worse. There was also an undercurrent of awkwardness, as if they were intruding on a private moment.

For the nth time since the mission started, Pyrrha squeezed Jaune’s hand tighter and wished there was something she or anyone could do to help their onscreen selves. Well, there is Salem… She brushed aside that thought as soon as it sprung up. The curse clearly only cared about herself and would do anything to make Jaune’s suffering even worse.

Ironwood’s words at his interview came back to him. “Jujutsu sorcerers never die without regret.”

Still, I want to be able to say my death was a proper one.

“The negative emotions of mankind become the source of curses,” Ren had told him.

So all the hate, fear, regret…Let it all out…He clenched his fist, cursed energy surging from them. And put it in your fist!

“Yes!” Ruby cheered, fists pumping in excitement.

“Go for its legs! It’s legs!” Nora screamed as Jaune ran at the still smirking curse.

Unfortunately, his punch was blocked with one arm, doing no damage whatsoever.

“That was expected,” Weiss muttered while Ruby and Nora sulked. It was a special-grade, and Jaune had just learned to channel cursed energy. What did they think would happen?

“Damn it!” A howl broke through his rage, sounding very similar to Ren’s Divine Dogs. That howl…

And indeed it was. Ren had safely carried Nora out of Block B and handed her over to Oobleck while Divine Dog Black howled into the open door.

Jaune’s shoulders sagged with relief. Now that his friends were safe, Other Jaune was free to hand control over to Salem.

It’s Ren’s signal. And in less than a second, Jaune wordlessly allowed Salem to take over.

The curse instinctively reared back in fear at the sudden surge of power radiating off its former victim.

Blake quirked an eyebrow. “The curse’s attitude switched up fast.”

“Salem’s just built different, I guess,” was Yang’s witty response.

“What a thoroughly annoying brat,” Salem commented dryly.

“I have a really bad feeling about this…” Pyrrha mumbled, feeling her stomach churn in discomfort. Salem had already expressed what she would do should Jaune switch with her. Sure, Ren and Nora were out of the immediate danger but she could just go after them.

“He is obviously screwing with me.” She patted the freaked out curse on its shoulder. “Hold on a moment. I’m thinking right now. What can I do to make that brat regret this?”

“Jeez, the curse is really shaken,” Yang said, eyes wide in amazement.

Weiss scoffed. “I knew letting her out was a bad idea.”

“But Jaune, Ren and Nora were going to die,” Ruby rebutted. “What other choice do they have?”

Blake nodded. “Ruby is right. None of them were qualified for the mission in the first place and as expected, it spiraled out of control. This was honestly the best possible outcome for Ren and Nora’s survival.”

Nora narrowed her eyes at the last part. “And what of Jaune’s survival?”

“Well, the report did say one of the first-years died, did it not?”

Her chilling statement reminded them all that the outcome of this mission was foretold. No matter what happened, one of the trio was going to die.

“But didn’t we agree that it couldn’t be Jaune?” Ruby finally piped up after stilling the swirl of emotions in her at the inevitable outcome. “Salem won’t just let Jaune die, right?”

Ren responded with a shake of his head. “That was before Salem said she wouldn’t care whether or not Jaune died. There are still eighteen other fragments of her soul out there so as far she’s concerned, dying here is no big loss.”

She imagined chibi versions of herself and Ren. If I went after him, the brat would just switch back right beforehand. Chibi Salem switched right back to Chibi Jaune. So the thing that would cause him the most trouble…is probably this. She pictured herself and the curse targeting Ren.

It was perfect. Now the brat would be forced to switch back and put themselves back right where they started. I’ll put things back the way they were.

Jaune fisted his hair in anger. “What is wrong with you!? Do you exist just to cause others pain and misery?”

“She’s a curse. I won’t expect nothing less,” Pyrrha replied.

“Hey, let’s go kill some kids,” she told the curse, walking away. The second she took her hand off its shoulder, it leaped away in fright. “Follow me.” She casually regenerated her fingers.

They gaped in awe of the feat.

“Damn, that’s cool,” Yang commented.

“Man, I wish our Aura was that good at healing!”

Ren quirked an amused brow at his best friend at her comment. “Why? So you can jump into a group of Grimm recklessly and without fear?”

An enthusiastic “Yes!” was Nora’s immediate response.

Weiss turned her nose up. “I guess that’s one thing cursed energy has over Aura,” she said, barely contained jealousy in her tone.

The curse shook, letting out several frightful breaths as it charged up another blast of cursed energy to take out the perceived threat.

“Yup, he’s dead,” Blake deadpanned.

“At least Salem now has more motivation to kill it, so that’s a plus,” Jaune said, letting out a relieved sigh.

Idiot, Salem thought, looking back just as the curse launched the cursed energy. Rapidly regenerating her other severed hand, she held it out, casually blocking the attack. “Ah, sh*t. I healed this one, too.”

“Whoa!” Ruby’s awed expression was mirrored by everyone else in the room.

“She can regenerate her entire hand, too!?” Weiss shrieked.

Pyrrha pondered on the feat. “I wonder if it’s a general skill anyone can learn or if it’s limited to just her. And to what extent can she regenerate herself?”

“Her arm? Maybe even her head?” Penny’s comment had Jaune looking absolutely horrified.

“I hope we never get to see that!”

The curse shrieked at the ease with which its attack was neutralized.

“You don’t like walks? Well, cursed spirits are usually supposed to stay where they’re born. Fine, fine. In that case…” She gave a disarming smile before vanishing in a burst of speed and reappearing in front of the curse. “…you die here!”

She grabbed the curse’s face and slammed it into the ground, cracking it. The curse groaned in pain.

They were taken aback by her impressive display of speed.

“Holy sh*t!” Yang swore. “I think she’s faster than even you, Ruby.”

Ruby nodded, gobsmacked.

“Hey, what’s the matter? You’re not finished already are you?” The mockery in her tone was obvious, even to the newly born curse who struggled to get up. “That’s it. Come on, try harder.” She stomped on its face, destroying the bridge.

“Wow,” Jaune muttered in awe at the sudden turn of events. The cursed spirit had seemed like such a huge threat at the start of the mission. Even surviving had looked like a monumental task when faced with the overwhelming power of the special-grade.

Now, none of that mattered. To Salem, the curse was but an insect, a toy to play with and amuse her. It both intrigued and terrified him, at the same time.

As they fell alongside the debris, the curse grabbed Salem’s leg and swung her around with intent to throw her. It wasn’t fast enough, however, and Salem escaped its grasp, now lounging casually on a piece of debris.

“Even a cursed spirit would miss their arm, right?” she asked, holding up its severed arm.

The curse gasped as the pain finally registered, unable to do anything but fall into the water below as Salem cackled maniacally.

An air of unease settled on the group. Faced with Salem’s malicious aura, it was easy to see why the elders of jujutsu society feared her resurrection.

“…and this is her at only two fingers.” Ren’s comment sent another shiver down their spines.

[][][]

Outside, Oobleck sat in a car, ready to drive off.

“Please expand the evacuation area to ten kilometers,” Ren told him.

“What about you?” the older man asked.

“I’m waiting here for Jaune to return.”

“I see. After I take Ms. Valkyrie to the hospital, I’ll return as quickly as possible.” Nora was laid unconscious in the backseat, bandages wrapped around her head and eyes.

Nora winced. “Oof. She really ran herself ragged, didn’t she?”

“At least she’s out of the danger zone, for now,” said Ren.

“No, there wouldn’t be much point in you staying here,” Ren said, unintentionally insulting the man. “If you want to do something, please ask them to send over a sorcerer grade 1 or higher. Not that I imagine any are around.”

“Man, this f*cking sucks,” Yang groaned. “Are there seriously no other sorcerers around?”

Penny wondered if she should bring up a theory that had been floating in her processing unit since the start of the mission. They’d been told that sorcerers were a minority and as such, highly understaffed. Still, no self-respecting organization would send three newbies, one of which had ZERO knowledge of jujutsu, into a mission were they would potentially encounter a special-grade cursed spirit. Add in the fact that Salem’s vessel was on this suicide mission— when Gojo was absent, no less— and it was easy to deduce that this was a calculated attempt to get rid of Jaune.

“I hope I’m wrong, though,” she mumbled. Jaune’s friends would be pissed should her theory turn out to be true.

“I’ll do what I can. Later.” The car drove off, leaving Ren in the rain.

If the worst case happens…He remembered his request to Gojo to keep Jaune alive. …then it’s my responsibility to end him.

Ren and Jaune frowned. They hoped it wouldn’t come to that.

[][][]

Back in Block B, Salem was still facing off against the cursed spirit. “Hey, did you know? We’re both classified as special-grade, apparently. Both you and me, man.”

The derision in her tone was obvious, as if she couldn’t fathom being on the same level as the cursed spirit. And she was proven right when the camera panned to show what she had done to the cursed spirit; dismembered, with itself and its severed limbs embedded deep into a wall, like a sacrificial scene straight out of a horror movie.

Their jaws dropped, eyes wide in shock at the gruesome scene.

“That’s brutal!” Nora said with a chortle.

Jaune couldn’t help but snort. “Compared to what the special-grade has done so far, I’d say it evens out.”

“The difference in strength is so large, it’s hard to believe the curse was cause for so much alarm before,” Blake said, with Pyrrha humming in agreement.

“I guess the King of Curses title isn’t just for show.”

The curse dislodged itself from the hole, limbs regenerating quickly.

Nora’s expression soured. “Great, it can regenerate, too.”

Salem sneered, not letting up her taunts. “Good job, special-grade. Keep trying.”

The curse dropped in a crouch in front of Salem, grinning at her.

She quirked an eyebrow mockingly. “You look happy. Want me to praise you? But healing with cursed energy isn’t that hard for cursed spirits, unlike for humans and faunus.”

Penny pondered on that statement. “I wonder why that is.”

“Maybe it’s easier for cursed spirits because they’re made from cursed energy?” Ren suggested, earning an accepting hum from the android.

“There’s probably a trick to it since Salem can do it quite easily,” Pyrrha added.

“Neither you nor this brat really understand what curses truly are.” She grinned, eyes alight. “This is a good opportunity, so I’ll show you what real jujutsu is.”

The curse stood up but nothing could prepare it for what happened next.

Curling her index and pinky fingers, Salem put her hands together so that the tips of the raised thumb, middle, and ring fingers touched.

“Domain Expansion,” she intoned.

In an instant, the area around them turned red, as if stained with blood. Behind Salem, a small Buddhist shrine materialized although its appearance looked distorted and demonic. Dark-coloured water encircled it, and the ground was covered in skulls that resembled bulls and had horns. Human skulls hung from the roof, with horns protruding from it as well. Large, hideous mouths, complete with human-like teeth, formed the four entrances to the shrine.

“Malevolent Shrine!”

Before the curse could comprehend what it was seeing, it was vertically slashed into multiple pieces.

The watchers were taken aback by the appearance of the demonic shrine, with their surprise turning into shocked screams when the curse was cleaved into pieces.

“What the f*ck was that!?” Yang screamed, shaking her partner erratically.

Said cat faunus shook her teammate off. “Don’t ask me! How am I supposed to know?”

“One moment the curse was standing and the next it was cut into multiple pieces!” Ruby gasped.

“Is…is that Salem’s technique?” Pyrrha asked, suppressing her unease. “The ability to cut things?”

Jaune looked at the frozen image of the sliced up curse. “It’s possible. Or maybe it’s only because of that thing she intoned earlier.” He frowned, trying to remember was it was. “Something expansion…?”

“Domain Expansion,” Weiss said.

Nora’s brow creased, a memory from earlier in the episode flashing to the forefront of her mind. “Didn’t Other Renny say something about a domain earlier?”

Penny flipped the mental notes she’d been taking. “He did. He called the warping of the dormitory’s internal structure the deployment of an Innate Domain using cursed energy. Not that we know what that means, either.”

“Before we get into what it means, let’s finish the episode,” Ren said, taking note of the minutes left. Factoring in the outro and if there would be another post-credits scene, it looked like there won’t be much time left till they can have an after-episode discussion.

Salem walked up to it. “I was planning to cut you in three slices, but you’re really weak. Oh, yeah, and then there’s this.” She reached for the hole in its chest, groping around inside before pulling out one of her fingers. “I’ll be taking this.”

Weiss frowned. “No wonder the cursed spirit was so strong. It had one of her fingers.”

“And now it’s back in Salem’s possession,” Jaune said, scowling.

Salem walked away as the now exorcised curse burst into purple flames.

“It’s over,” she called out. It was only a few seconds of silence before irritation started to get to her. “This sucks! If you’re gonna switch, just do it already!” She waited again. Still no response. “What’s the matter, brat?”

“Erm, hello? Remnant to Jaune?” Ruby called out, as if the teen could hear her through the screen.

“Maybe he’s still out of it?” Blake suggested. “He did take quite a beating.”

Pyrrha felt a chill run down her spine. “But if Jaune can’t wake up, then Salem…”

The implications of a temporarily [or permanently] free Salem shot a bolt of terror through their hearts.

Salem’s lips curled into a malevolent smile at the realization of what was happening. A dark chuckle escaped her lips. Time to have some fun!

“…f*ck.”

The curse resonated with everyone [except for Penny], even as the outro played. The tonal switch between that horrifying ending and the upbeat outro was quite jarring.

“So…” Yang began. “they’re screwed.”

“Do they even have a way to stop Salem if she goes on a rampage?” Blake asked.

“They do. She’s away on business.” Weiss’ comment once again reminded them that Summer Gojo, the only person they’ve seen so far with the ability of stopping Salem, was unavailable.

Jaune heaved a deep sigh, resting his face on his palms. “My counterpart had better wake up fast, or who knows what Salem will do next…” He paused when he remembered one significant detail. “Oh, my God, Ren is still there…”

Nora’s breath hitched. She subconsciously reached for her Ren’s hand, as if to reassure herself that he was safe. “H-He said he plans to stop Salem should the worst case scenario happen.”

“Can…can he even do that?” Ruby asked after a pause. “I mean, this is SALEM we’re talking about here.”

“One first-year died,” Pyrrha mumbled.

Ren’s shoulders sagged. “My counterpart is the most likely casualty of this mission.”

He felt Nora’s hand tighten and squeezed back in kind. He would’ve said she was overreacting--- he wasn’t the one dying, after all, his counterpart was--- but he knew that wasn’t something she’d want to see, either. He only hoped Salem made it quick.

Jaune didn’t think he could watch an ancient psychopathic sorcerer puppeteer his body to murder one of his closest friends. As well as go on a murdering spree, killing tons of innocent people.

“Enough with the doom and gloom.” Weiss’ sharp voice cut through the depressing atmosphere. “Let’s just watch the Juju Stroll and after, go over everything we learned this episode.”

“Yes, yes, understood.” Oobleck was on a call, bowing multiple times as he replied the person on the other end. “Thank you very much. Yes.”

Yang snorted. “He bows when he’s on a call?”

“Stare…” Nora and Jaune said in unison, staring at the older man. Beside them, Ren looked uninterested in their antics.

Oobleck noticed their confused stares. “What’s the matter?” he asked.

“You bow while on the phone,” said Nora.

He chuckled. “I just get so wrapped up in creating the feeling of ‘I’m on the phone!’ while on the call…”

“Doesn’t mean you have to bow while on a call…” Blake mumbled.

“It’s like nodding in response while on a call,” Weiss said. “The other person can’t see you.”

Nora crossed her arms, nodding in understanding. “I know what you mean. I’ve hurt my neck several times dealing with ingrown hairs while depilating. Of course, I’ve hurt my pores, too.”

The group stared at the ginger onscreen. Even Nora was befuddled by her counterpart’s comparison.

“How are those two things related?” Jaune asked at the same time his counterpart did.

“Is that really the same?” Jaune asked. He turned to their third teammate. “You’re often irritated when you’re on the phone, Ren.”

The aforementioned boy deadpanned. “That’s because of Gojo-sensei, not the phone.”

“He has my condolences.”

Ren’s dry retort was met with a round of chuckles.

“You often wander around when you’re on the phone, Jaune,” Nora pointed out.

“I do that, too!” Ruby said with a giggle.

“Same!” Nora and Ruby high-fived each other.

“Speaking of phones,” Oobleck said, balancing his phone between his ear and shoulder, “can you all stay on a call while holding the phone against your shoulder?”

Jaune and Ren successfully did it. Nora, however, didn’t balance her phone well and it slid off her shoulder. She released a gut wrenching scream as her phone hit the ground, screen cracking on impact.

The group burst into laughter at that.

“I don’t envy her at all!” Nora cackled.

“You do realize you’re mocking yourself, right?” Ren asked with mirth.

She shrugged nonchalantly. “Where’s the fun if you can’t laugh at yourself every now and then?”

As the laughter subsided, Pyrrha cleared her throat. “Now that we’ve seen the Juju Stroll, let’s go over everything we learned this episode.”

“Right.” Weiss nodded, looking down at the papers in her hand. “Starting out at the beginning, we know not all cursed spirits start out as cursed wombs. The types that do undergo metamorphosis become special-grades.”

“Considering the detention center cursed spirit absorbed Salem’s finger, I wonder if that’s the reason it underwent metamorphosis,” Blake commented.

The heiress shrugged. “It’s a possibility.”

Ruby looked at Weiss’ notes over her shoulder. “Let’s see…we kinda already went over some things mid episode. Oh, what about that Innate Domain thing that Ren mentioned?”

“Oh, and is there a connection to that Domain Expansion thingy Salem did at the end?” Nora piped up, raising her previous question.

“Without more information about their powers, we can’t really say anything for certain,” Ren told her.

She pouted. “C’mon, but we can guess! Think of it like coming up with fan theories for your favourite show.”

“Let’s break it down by each word first,” Penny began. “Innate means something that is inborn; present from birth. A domain is a zone, a territory under control by a person or organization. And we all know what expansion means. Extension, enlargement.”

Yang gave it a bit of thought. “A zone that you’re born with…And can be expanded at will…”

“Maybe it is a pocket dimension, like Penny said earlier,” Jaune chimed in. “A special space connected only to you from the moment you’re born. And it can be deployed, or expanded, with cursed energy.”

Pyrrha turned to him. “You’re saying they were standing in the cursed spirit’s Domain Expansion?”

“It’s a working theory, especially with the little we know.”

Blake jumped into the conversation. “Part of me disagrees solely because there didn’t seem to be anything particularly special about its domain. Asides old pathways getting lost, the cursed spirit’s Domain Expansion felt lackluster, especially when compared to Salem’s.”

“True. The curse got sliced up immediately she opened her domain,” Weiss noted. “And something about it just felt…different from the cursed spirit’s.” She shuddered, remembering the demonic-looking shrine that materialized behind the King of Curses. Even through the screen, its appearance gave her chills.

“Guys, that’s far from a fair comparison. It is Salem, after all,” Ruby said.

Pyrrha let out a soft chuckle. “I doubt we’ll get far without further information. What I’m more worried about at the moment is why Jaune isn’t switching with Salem.” Her tone was tinged with worry and concern.

“Whatever is happening, it better get resolved fast. Or a lot of people are going to die,” said Yang. Went unsaid was that Ren would be one of, if not the first, casualty.

“Hopefully Zookeeper Ren will be able to hold out for a little while.” Nora’s attempt to lighten up the conversation worked, and they chuckled at her comment.

“Hahaha,” Ren responded, a deadpan glare locked on his partner who blew a raspberry.

And so, they moved on to the next episode.

Chapter 6: Curse Womb Must Die, Part II

Chapter Text

“This sucks! If you’re gonna switch, just do it already!” Salem called out, irritated. She waited again. Still no response from Jaune. “What’s the matter, brat?”

Salem’s lips curled into a malevolent smile at the realization of what was happening. A dark chuckle escaped her lips. Time to have some fun!

“I’m screwed,” Ren muttered, causing his partner to hiss in response.

“Don’t say that!”

[][][]

The rain gently pattered on the ground as Ren waited outside the detention center. His face was the perfect picture of calm, but his mind was in turmoil. He perked up when, like a system glitch, the domain’s menacing aura vanished. The Innate Domain’s closed off! The special-grade is dead! Now we just need Jaune to return safely… He gasped, feeling a familiar dark and oppressing presence. One he never thought he’d ever feel again.

“Sorry, but he’s not coming back.” Salem stepped out from behind him.

Some of the watchers jumped, not expecting her to get behind Ren so quickly.

“No escape for him…” Pyrrha mumbled.

She smiled, reveling in the fear that was practically pouring out of the shaking teen. “Don’t be so frightened. I’m in a great mood right now. Let’s chat for a bit,” she said languidly.

The group watched with baited breaths, unable to relax with the ever present threat of Salem standing in front of their friend.

Salem stepped out in front of him. “This is what he gets for trying to use me without any kind of pact. Feels like he’s having some trouble switching back. Still though…” She continued, hands grabbing at Jaune’s uniform and tearing it apart. “It’s only a matter of time.”

“She really hates shirts,” Blake mused. “Makes me wonder, in her previous form…”

The implication of Blake’s musings caused many faces to burn red in embarrassment.

“B-Blake!” Ruby yelled, looking scandalized while her sister cackled like a hyena.

The faunus shrugged unapologetically. “Just calling it like I see it.”

That seemed to clear the air a bit. Pyrrha shook of the last remnants of her blush, thinking back to Salem’s earlier comment.

“There’s something she said earlier. About Jaune having trouble switching back…”

They rewound to her comment. “A pact?” Nora repeated.

“An agreement,” Pyrrha elaborated. “But what does that have to do with anything?”

Weiss thought hard about it for a moment. “I think what she means is that Arc is having trouble switching because she didn’t agree to the switch in the first place?” She sounded unsure at the end.

“Weird. That was never an issue before,” Jaune said, confused.

“Yeah, Jaune could switch with Salem easily in the first and second episodes,” Ruby added.

“Maybe it was never that simple,” Penny chimed in, drawing a questioning look from her best friend. “If it truly is an agreement between the two parties, meaning both Jaune Arc and Ryomen Salem consent to the switch, then it makes sense why it looked like Friend Jaune could control it whenever.”

“But we never saw Jaune and Salem make any sort of deals before,” Yang said to counter her point.

“Maybe…maybe it doesn’t have to be a verbal agreement , ” Ren carefully spoke up, locking eyes with Penny as he began to see the point she was trying to make. An enthusiastic nod from the android confirmed that they were on the same wavelength. “When Salem first incarnated after Jaune ate the finger, she was easily suppressed because Jaune didn’t consent to having his body being taken over by her.”

Nora quirked a brow, still unconvinced. “But he handed her his body less than five minutes later to fight Summer Gojo. And he took it right back after the ten seconds were up.”

“That’s where the non-verbal part of it comes in!” Penny interjected herself back into the conversation. She was having so much fun debating and theorizing as they watched the show. Maybe I should do something like this with Winter. After the festival, perhaps… “There may not have been a verbal agreement that we know of, but it was Salem’s first time incarnating in a thousand years. She looked eager to finally be free, meaning she must have also wanted the switch.”

Realization finally dawned on them at the end of Penny’s explanation. And it made sense; Jaune and Salem had to have a common interest for a switch to occur in the first place. Considering how different their personalities and goals were, that was a tall ask.

Jaune’s features upturned sourly, frustration welling up inside upon finally understanding the nature of his counterpart’s predicament.

“So that’s it? Other me can’t get his body back because he used Salem against her will?”

An errant thought sent a chill down Ruby’s spine. “I-It’s not permanent…right?”

They stared at the paused image of Salem in Jaune’s body in apprehension.

“I don’t think so.” Blake said, cutting through the tension. She pressed play, hearing Salem’s next comment about Jaune’s return only being a matter of time. “See? Jaune can return. Don’t forget, the only reason he’s even here right now is because he’s one of the few people that can suppress Salem.”

Many breathed a sigh of relief. “Well, let’s hope Ren can hold out until then,” Yang said.

“So…I thought about what I can do right now.” She raised a clawed hand to her chest. Ren gasped in horror as Salem stabbed into her chest. She chuckled darkly, blood dripping from her mouth as she clawed through her chest, reaching for her heart.

“Wh-What are you…?” Ren gasped.

Jaune let out a choked gasp. “My heart?!” He unconsciously pawed at his chest, as if trying to assure himself that his own heart was still there.

“Jaune!” Pyrrha, Nora and Ruby yelled. Strangled gasps echoed throughout the room, leaving many mouths agape.

Blood spurted from her chest, dripping to the ground in copious amounts as Salem ripped out her heart, while Ren’s eyes widened in horrifying disbelief.

“I’m taking this brat hostage,” she declared with a bloody smile, holding the still beating heart out in front of her; a sight that caused the watchers to cringe.

Ruby promptly ran into the bathroom, hand over her mouth. Not even a second passed after she shut the door did the sounds of vomiting fill their ears. Yang swiftly moved to assist her sister while fighting to keep down her own food down.

Others barely fared better. Weiss retched, trying to still her stomach and Nora swallowed the bile she felt coming up her throat. Blake physically recoiled and looked away from the screen.

“This has to be a joke, right?” Pyrrha blurted out, nervous laughter bubbling up. Her heart threatened to jump out of her chest from how fast it was beating. It took Jaune giving her hand a comforting squeeze to get her breaths to steady and even out.

“Hostage?!” he parroted.

“Yeah. I can live without this, but that ain’t true for the brat.” She tossed the heart onto the grass. “Switching out with me means he dies.”

Jaune flinched at the how casually his heart was discarded.

“Surely that has to still be damaging to her, right? She can’t just toss aside something like her heart !” Weiss’ worries were met with silence and shrugs from the rest. No one could rationalize how it was possible. They were just getting introduced to the world and its power system; for all they knew, this was a common thing among powerful sorcerers. Or maybe Salem could do it because she was the King of Curses.

Blake sighed morosely. “So this is how it is, huh? Either Jaune takes back his body to save Ren, committing suicide, or he lets Salem kill his friend.”

“It’s a sh*tty situation no matter how you look at it,” Nora grumbled.

“Also…” Salem held up the finger she retrieved from the special-grade cursed spirit…“For good measure.” …and ate it.

“Now switching would be even harder,” Penny said, remembering the previous times Jaune ate the fingers and fought for control each time.

Salem’s finger! That special-grade cursed spirit must have consumed it! Ren realized, keeping his guard up.

“With that I’m free as bird. You can be frightened now.” She flexed her claws, grinning madly. “I’ll kill you! For no particular reason.”

“Our positions are reversed now,” Ren mumbled.

[][][]

Episode 5: Curse Womb Must Die, II

The only thing granted equally to all is an unfair reality, Ren thought.

An image of a series of spinning cogs transitioned to a brown-haired girl with light brown complected skin lying unconscious among a bed of black petunias. A strange red marking was tattooed on her forehead.

“Who’s that?” Nora wondered, glancing at Ren who shrugged. He’d never seen her before. He figured that if she was someone important enough to be shown now, they’d find out more information about her later.

The scene transitioned back to the juvenile detention center. Amidst the pouring rain, Ren readied himself to face off against Salem. “You just don’t get it,” he told her. “He’s…Jaune’s coming back. Even if that means he’ll die. That’s just who he is.”

Jaune smiled, his heart warmed by the unwavering conviction Ren had in his other self. Even when it seemed like he didn’t have any in himself. He met Ren’s eyes, his teammate nodding in acknowledgement that he also felt the same way.

“You give him too much credit. This guy’s just a little tougher and denser than other humans.” She laughed, wiping the blood trailing from her mouth. “Just a moment ago, he was scared out of his mind, on the verge of death, and prattling on about his regrets and all that nonsense. I know for a fact he doesn’t have the guts to kill himself.”

Ren stared at her raised left hand. Her left arm is restored! He remembered the moment Jaune was dismembered by the cursed spirit. Healing…She can use Reverse Cursed Techniques.

“Reverse cursed techniques?” Nora asked.

“Probably what they call healing abilities,” was Ren’s response before he turned to Pyrrha. “I guess this answers your previous question about whether or not it’s a general skill.”

She nodded. “I guess it does.” If it was an ability specific to Salem, it wouldn’t have a generally recognizable name.

Salem’s incarnated. Even if she can live without a heart, it should still be damaging to her. I’ll make her heal her heart before Jaune returns. I just have to make her believe she can’t beat me without a heart in her body!

“It’s not a bad plan…” Yang mused but her partner voiced her doubts with such a plan.

“But can he actually do it? They could barely handle the special-grade from before.”

“He doesn’t have to win,” Pyrrha interjected, wading into the conversation in Ren’s defense. “He just has to hold her off long enough for her to believe she needs to regenerate her heart to beat him.”

Easier said than done. Blake chose to keep watching. Perhaps Ren would prove her wrong.

Can I do that… His arm trembled, remembering the feeling of being in presence of the special-grade cursed spirit. …when I couldn’t even move with that special-grade in front of me? Ren gritted his teeth, staring at the curse standing languidly while possessing his friend’s body. It’s not about whether I can. I have to do it!

He shakily brought his hands together in the shape of a pair of wings. His shadow stretched out behind him, shaping into Nue. They charged at the still unfazed Salem.

“Go Ren!” Nora and Jaune cheered.

“I’m finally outside, after all,” she said, running her fingers through her hair. “Let’s use the open space.”

Ren moved in closer, throwing a flurry of punches and kicks at her. His efforts were for naught, as she casually dodged all his attempts with her hands in her pockets.

Any hope Ren had for a win dashed at the sight of Salem casually dodging his doppelganger’s attacks. She didn’t even look like she was trying!

“His hand-to-hand skills need work,” Pyrrha noted with a wince. It was almost painful to watch, seeing how outclassed the young sorcerer was.

Salem smiled, intrigued and uncaring of Nue approaching behind her. “Interesting. You use shikigami, but you’ll still come at me yourself?”

Weiss understood her intrigue. As her sister, Winter, had once told her, it was a mistake many opponents made thinking Winter was unable to hold her own in close-quarters combat just because she could use Summons. They were quickly disabused of that notion.

She ducked under all the shikigami’s attacks while dodging Ren’s at the same time. Undeterred, the jujutsu sorcerer came at her again, throwing another flurry of attacks at the grinning curse as she parried and blocked with one hand.

“More. More.” She grabbed his fist, swinging him around. “More!” Salem dragged him closer until their faces were only centimeters apart. “Put more curse behind it…” She grinned madly, before knocking him back with a vicious blow to the head. “…when you strike me!” Blood sprayed in the air as she grinned maliciously, red eyes gleaming in the dark with excitement.

“That’s it, Ren! Don’t let up!” Nora yelled encouragingly. Her yells died upon witnessing the harsh blow Salem struck across his face.

Ren rubbed his face, almost feeling phantom pain from the attack. “Ow.”

“She’s insane,” Weiss gasped.

Ren slid back, shaping his fingers into a snake-head shadow puppet. Great Serpent! The massive black and white snake from the previous episode burst out of his shadow, clamping down on Salem and taking her to the sky.

“Gang up on her!” Ren called out.

Electricity sparked off of Nue’s wings as it struck Salem, electrocuting her. The bird shikigami made multiple passes, scoring consecutive hits while Great Serpent held her in place.

The shikigamis onscreen combo whipped the group into a frenzy. There was a lot of yelling and cheering from Ruby, Nora, Yang, and Jaune. Their friends were more tame in their excitement but the quartet’s energy was infectious.

“Go Nue!” Ruby yelled.

“Chew off her legs, you beautiful bird!”

Pyrrha snorted at Nora’s comment. “What is it with you and legs?”

“Even I’ve given up on figuring that out,” Ren responded, amused.

Still unperturbed, the king of curses smirked, and with a flex of her arms, Great Serpent burst apart into multiple pieces.

The mood in the room died once again.

Ren was barely able to process his shock before his opponent moved behind him, gripping his uniform.

“Hey, what did I just say? Let’s use the open space!” Salem said, mercilessly tossing Ren through the trees and into the air. He could barely orient himself before Salem jumped at him with a vicious kick that sent him bouncing across two rooftops. She reappeared and with another heavy blow, punched him through another building, his body crashing through pillar after pillar before he was back outside.

“Ren!”

“f*ck, that has to hurt,” Yang hissed, wincing with every impact he took. She wondered how he was still alive with all that pain. I don’t think I’d survive all those hits, even with my Semblance.

“...not even Aura can protect us from something like this,” Blake muttered.

Nue flew by and caught him in its talons, trying to get away from their fearsome opponent. Ren remained slump in its grasp, pain lancing through every fibre of his being with every movement. It was all he could do to not pass out.

It’s not even a matter of jujutsu. Her power… He raised his head, blurry vision meeting the form of his approaching opponent. …and her agility are on a different scale.

“Nice technique there,” Salem praised, bringing down a hammerblow on Nue, sending it and its summoner crashing down the side of a building. They lay slumped against the debris as Salem landed a few feet away from them.

Ren heaved a resigned sigh. It looks like this is it for me.

What do I do? Ren thought tiredly. I used up one of my shikigami to escape that Innate Domain. Divine Dog White and Great Serpent are both destroyed… And Nue’s at his limit, too. He rubbed the bird’s head. I should release him before he gets destroyed. Nue dissolved back into shadows.

“Wait, does he permanently lose his shikigami if they get destroyed?” Ruby asked, aghast.

“Who knows?” Weiss answered with a shrug. They hadn’t been given a lot of information on how the boy’s abilities worked, and while she wanted to assume it was similar to her family’s summons which could be summoned even after destruction, she couldn’t be too sure.

“I get it now. So your shikigami are created from shadows,” Salem noted.

It makes no difference if she knows that now. “So what?” he asked.

“Hmmm…” Salem stroked her chin, humming in deep thought. It’s not the generic technique that uses charms. It’s adaptable, too.

Penny noted down her charm comment. “So using shikigami isn’t an uncommon ability. And it usually involves the use of charms in.”

“I hope we see another shikigami user. I wanna see how well Ren does against them,” Nora said.

“I don’t get it, though,” she began, tilting her head in mild confusion. “Why did you run back then?”she asked, recalling when Ren ran from the special-grade. “What a waste of talent.” She scoffed, much to his confusion.

Nora perked up. “Is she saying what I think she’s saying?”

“That Ren could have beat the special-grade? Yeah, she is.” Pyrrha was also intrigued by Salem’s analysis. Sorcerer-Ren hadn’t shown anything so far that would imply that he had that much power. What exactly was it about his technique that helped her come to that conclusion? “I wonder why she thinks that…”

“With how long she’s lived and her allegedly incredible skill in jujutsu, Salem probably has an eye for detecting that sort of thing,” Yang commented.

“Whatever. Either way, that wouldn’t be enough to fix this,” Salem said, pointing at the bloody hole in her’s chest.

Ren smiled bitterly. She’s figured it out, huh? He rose to his feet.

She continued her spiel. “You’re risking your life over stupid sh*t. This brat isn’t even worth that much.”

“He is!” His friends declared as one.

Jaune’s cheeks threatened to split upon hearing his friends’ declaration.

“Then why did you bother saving me?!” Jaune’s question from before echoed in his thoughts. It got him thinking: why did he save Arc?

The only thing granted equally to all is an unfair reality. An image of multiple cogs moving together filled the screen before transitioning to his memory one of the brown-haired girl from earlier, only now, she was awake.

“If I have the time to curse someone, I’d rather spend it thinking about those precious to me,” she said.

“She seems nice,” Ruby said, and her friends nodded in agreement.

“I still wonder who she is to me,” Ren stated. “And what happened to her.”

There was no room to doubt what a good person she was. The screen glitched, showing the girl now unconscious, as she was earlier. She deserved happiness more than anyone else. But Amber was still cursed. [1]

“Oh,” was all Ren could say. At least that answered his second question. Call it a gut feeling, but he was starting to suspect the kind of relationship his other self and the girl shared.

My father is still off living as he pleases somewhere. Cursed energy pooled around his raised hand. [2]

Ren felt like he’d been hit with a sledgehammer. What else would this twisting feeling in his chest be? The reveal that somewhere out there, in another universe, his father was alive and well– albeit absent– was enough to make him lose his composure.

Nora’s reaction, while a bit tame compared to Ren’s, was still enough to have her jaw drop and turn to her seemingly catatonic best friend in shock.

Their friends were not at all surprised at Ren’s reaction to that information. With the exception of Penny, everyone knew he and Nora were orphans. It was an awkward silence that descended upon the room as no one knew how to move the conversation forward.

Well, almost no one. Nora slowly reached out for Ren, placing her hand on his. The sudden contact was enough to jolt him from his stasis. It wasn’t until he got his breathing back under control that he noticed the looks he was receiving.

“Um…” He cleared his throat. “My apologies, everyone, for that…for holding our watch back.”

It was clear he was trying to save face and not bother them with his troubles. However no one was willing to call him out on it.

“Okay. If you say so…” Jaune received a confirming nod from Ren, prompting Ruby to resume the episode.

Karma isn’t fully automatic. Evil people can only be judged under the law. Jujutsu sorcerers are just another cog in that machine of retribution. He remembered visiting his kind sister in the hospital, unable to do anything to help her, and wondering at the unfairness that she of all people got cursed. I want more people to enjoy fairness, even if only a few, so I save people unequally! Both arms were now extended at a slight upward angle, with his fists closed. Cursed energy surged all over him in preparation for his technique.

Blake nodded. “So those are his ideals, huh? Not bad.”

“Saving people unequally…” Penny mused. It was a fairly new concept for the android. From the point she had gained consciousness and begun learning the difference between right from wrong, one thing she had always been taught was to use her gifts for the benefit of everyone. No favouritism, no discrimination. Even criminals deserved to be saved and turned over to the proper authorities.

Ren’s ideology prioritized saving good people alone. It was his way of providing fairness to counter the unfairness brought about by life. Thinking deeply about it, Penny realized it was probably the reason he saved Jaune, too. The teen sorcerer saw in Arc someone who would go above and beyond even for people he didn’t know. That sort of innate goodness was more than likely the spark that gave Ren a change of heart.

“I dunno…” Ruby muttered. “It’s good that he wants to help people, but…helping only those you want to, isn’t that a bit selfish?” She looked at her friends. “Right?”

Pyrrha met Ruby’s eyes, nodding in understanding. “I see where you’re coming from. On the surface, it does sound like a selfish way of thinking, but I think his heart is still in the right place.”

“You think so?” Jaune asked receiving a nod from his partner.

“He seeks retribution for people who can’t defend themselves. No matter how selfish he thinks his decisions are, the very act of wanting to help others is selfless,” Weiss added.

The pressure emanating from him washed over the surprised King of Curses, causing her to stare wide-eyed at the new look of determination on Ren’s face. Her surprise turned to savage glee, lips forming into a twisted grin.

“Nice. That’s it. So this is when you start burning through your life! Now I see.” She stepped forward, walking over to him in anticipation. “Well, in that case…Show me, Lie Ren!”

Ren looked unflinchingly at the approaching curse and began his chant. “Sacred treasure swing and ring, ring. Eight Grip–!” He stopped abruptly as he was hit with an epiphany, his cursed energy receding.

“What just happened?” Nora asked. “Was he gonna summon something? Why’d he stop? Was it dangerous? What did Salem mean by him burning through his life?”

“I’m sure…” Ren interjected, cutting off her rapid stream of words, “…that we’ll receive answers to all your questions in later episodes. For now, let’s keep watching.”

“Just so you know…” Ren began. “…I don’t have any logical reason for saving you back then. Even if it was dangerous, I couldn’t bear to see a good person like you die.” Memories of the night he met Jaune and everything that went down flashed through his mind. “I did have my reservations, but ultimately it was for selfish, emotional reasons. That’s fine, though. I’m not a hero.”

He was so focused on his speech, he didn’t notice Salem’s tattoos slowly but surely receding as Jaune’s consciousness pushed forward.

Their eyes widened upon seeing the tattoos vanishing.

“Is he…?” Ruby gasped, her sister nodding with a wide grin.

“He is. Jaune’s coming back.”

Weiss fiercely blinked back tears pooling in her eyes. Blake noticed and with an amused smirk, asked, “Are you crying?”

The heiress sniffed, turning up her nose at the accusation. “No. Just felt something enter my eyes.”

He dropped his hands, releasing his technique. “I’m a jujutsu sorcerer. So I’ve never once regretted saving you,” he finished with a smile.

Salem’s tattoos fully vanished showing that her consciousness had receded and Jaune’s was back in control. “I see.” He grinned, scratching the back of his head in embarrassment. “You really are smart, Ren. You’ve put more thought into this than I have. I think your conviction’s a proper one, but I don’t think mine is wrong, either.”

Both boys smiled at their counterparts’ admissions to one another. Those smiles turned to grimaces when they realized what was about to happen.

All around the room, tears pooled at the corners of their eyes as they watched the friends exchange their last words to each other.

Ren looked on at his friend with a pained smile as blood began dripping from Jaune’s chest.

A choked sob esacped Pyrrha. “No…”

Jaune kept up his smile even as his vision slowly darkened. “Oh, sorry, I’m almost done for. Guess I won’t have to worry you, Nora, or Gojo-sensei.” He tipped forward… “Live a long life.” …and collapsed at Ren’s feet.

Ren gritted his teeth to still his wobbling lips. He raised his head, unable to look down at his friend’s corpse, and let the rain wash away his tears.

A round of sobs rang out in the silent room, most especially from Ruby, Nora and Pyrrha. The latter threw her arms around her partner, holding him tightly as if he would disappear any moment from now.

The others passed around tissues to their crestfallen partners, even while trying to keep their composure. Even the ever composed Blake looked sorrowful, despite not being as close to Jaune as the others.

“So that’s it?” Penny murmured. “Friend Jaune is…dead?”

Blake, looking downcast, nodded. “Yeah, looks like it.”

“But…isn’t he the main focus of this viewing?” Penny sounded so confused. “And what about the rest of Salem’s fingers? How will they get rid of her now?”

“I-I don’t know, Penny,” she replied.

Yang’s sorrow gave way to rage, balling her hands into fists. “This is all that bitch, Salem’s, fault! Can’t she just drop dead, already?!”

Jaune sighed tiredly. “I think she’s dead, too, Yang. If I die, she dies, remember?”

Yang visibly deflates, all anger leaving her body at that reminder. She got her wish, but at what cost? Even with the death sentence hanging over his head since episode one, actually witnessing it was jarring.

She let out a relieved sigh when Weiss, who was done comforting Ruby, pressed play for the episode to continue.

[][][]

It was an average morning in the city. Under the clear and blue sunny sky of Tokyo was the usual hustle and bustle of the city. Trains and cars commuted people to work, others sauntered along the pavement and across a crosswalk.

The scene shifted to another group of individuals behind a crosswalk. Nothing extraordinary about this scene but for one thing; a small group of curses stood among the unaware civilians, also waiting for the traffic lights to allow them to move.

“Well, tell me,” the curse in front spoke. He carried himself like an elderly man, leaning forward on a walking stick. His pale grey skin that faded in brown near his volcano-shaped head looked like stone. “Was there any real reason to use a precious finger to test Salem’s strength?”

His question was directed at the woman in front of him who shared similar physical features with Yang; same facial shape and long, bushy hair, although hers was jet black and her complexion was lighter. She was dressed like a Buddhist priest, and her most striking physical feature was the line of stitches along her forehead.

“Whoa!”Nora gasped. “Yang, she looks just like y–”

The words on Nora’s tongue died when she and the rest of their friends noticed the glare said blonde leveled at the frozen image of the woman onscreen.

Years of anger and resentment built up from Raven’s abandonment bubbled beneath her skin, threatening to combust. Just the sight of her dredged up painful memories; memories of after Summer’s disappearance. How her father had shut down after the loss of another lover. Finding out she had a mother somewhere out there that had just left her right after she was born. And her younger self’s naive quest to seek her out which nearly resulted in hers and Ruby’s death had their uncle not saved them.

Yang remembered having to step up to a motherly role at such a young age. With Taiyang grieving and Qrow too drunk most of the time to act responsibly, she had practically raised Ruby. Of course, her father pulled himself together and stepped back into his parental role but she’d gotten so used to taking care of her sister, and Ruby had gotten used to it, that it was hard to stop. When Ruby was younger, Yang was the one she almost always ran to first whenever she was having a problem. Sometimes, deep within her subconscious, she wondered if a part of Ruby saw her as a mother.

“Yang?” The sound of her sister’s voice pulled her out of her thoughts. She finally noticed the concerned stares of her friends.

“You good, Yang?” Nora hesitantly asked.

“Uh…Yeah.” It wasn’t until she noticed tongues of fire licking on her hair that she realized how close she was to fully activating her semblance. She deactivated it with an awkward chuckle.

“What was that about?” Jaune asked. “D-do you know her?”

Blake’s head snapped in his direction. “That is a private question; one Yang will answer when she’s–”

“She’s my mother.”

Yang’s interruption surprised everyone, both those who knew and those who didn’t. The former where even more stunned, having assumed the buxom blonde would want to keep that information to herself. It was a sore spot for her, after all.

Turning back to the screen, Weiss hummed noncommittally. “I figured. The resemblance is too uncanny to be anything but a family relation.”

The rest nodded. Had the woman onscreen been a few years younger, she could pass for Yang’s twin.

“Like I said earlier, her name is Raven Branwen,” Yang continued, “my biological mother who abandoned me immediately after I was born, leaving my dad to raise me alone. Until he got together with Summer.”

“So she’s a bitch.”

Nora’s blunt commentary elicited a round of reactions ranging from Yang and Ruby’s snorts to Pyrrha’s gasps, with the latter chiding her teammate.

“Nora!”

Said girl did not look even the least bit ashamed. “What? It’s true! What sort of parent abandons their kid?!”

“Preach, sister!” Ruby yelled out encouragingly.

The formerly somber mood had significantly lightened, leaving smiles on everyone’s faces while watching the Nora and Pyrrha bicker, with Ruby adding fuel to the fire. Eventually, it all died down and they resumed the episode.

“Well, there wasn’t much point to it with a half-baked test case,” Raven replied. “But we did learn a few things.”

Penny’s eyes lit up in realization. “Are they the ones that set up the incident at the detention center?”

“What are you talking about?” Jaune asked.

“That volcano-head cursed spirit just asked Miss Branwen why they had to make use of a finger to test Salem’s strength. Now, there’s a possibility that they are referring to an entirely different scenario that we haven’t seen yet, but it makes sense given the switch from the end of that mission to this scene.”

The others contemplated her theory, some already seeing the merit in it.

“It makes sense,” Pyrrha muttered. “Why would Salem’s finger be at a juvenile detention center in the first place? It might have been placed there to engineer their plans.”

“Or it was placed there as a talisman to ward off other curses. Like at Jaune’s old school,” Ren interjected. “Detention centers are also places associated with a lot of negative emotions. And that’s prime breeding ground for cursed spirits.”

“Your idea is sound but Penny’s sounds a lot more plausible from a storytelling perspective. Let’s wait and see,” Weiss said.

The volcano-head grumbled, rolling his cycloptic eye. “Hmph. I’m praying that’s not just an excuse.”

The large squid-like curse made a bunch of adorable sounds in agreement. The tallest of the curses with tree stalks for its eyes and its left arm covered in a large cloth also spoke up in an unrecognizable language.

“What the f*ck?” Yang uttered, ignoring Pyrrha throwing up her hands in defeat. “What did that weed-looking curse, say?”

Ruby rewound the scene and played it again. “There’s no subtitles. Maybe it doesn’t speak English…?”

“It’s a sentient monster born from negative emotions. If the story wants us to understand it, we will,” Weiss drawled out.

Somehow, the tree curse’s unrecognizable speech caused the volcano-head to lose his cool as a burst of steam erupted from his head. “Stop talking! No one understands what you’re saying!”

The lights turned green signaling they could cross.

“We don’t understand, yet the meaning flows right into our minds. It’s creepy!”

“Oh, that’s how it works.”

They headed into a cafe restaurant. The waitress at the door greeted her new customer cheerfully. “Welcome! Would you like a seat for one?” she asked Raven, unaware of her three other companions walking into the cafe.

Raven smiled amiably. “Yes, one, please.”

“It’s really good that regular people can’t see curses,” said Jaune.

“Can you imagine seeing monsters moving among you all the time with no way to defend yourself against it?” Pyrrha’s reply caused Jaune to let out an involuntary shudder.

“I know I’d have a heart attack.”

Ren sighed. “I hope nothing happens to anyone in the cafe.”

[][][]

The scene switched back to the Jujutsu High, the stark white walls and the covered body on a table signifying that it was a morgue.

“If you encounter it, your choices are to either run or die. I warned them that fighting was absolutely not an option,” Oobleck said, head bowed slightly in apology as he informed Summer, who was sitting on a carrier in the room, of the news.

“It was intentional,” she replied.

Oobleck looked up in surprise. “Huh? What do you mean?”

Even through the blindfold, Summer looked at him like he was crazy. How could he not see the clear conspiracy at work here? “There was a special-grade. Sending first-years to rescue five who may or may not be alive should be out of the question.”

“Besides, with Jaune, I was the one who forced the issue and got his execution indefinitely suspended. Some higher-ups who didn’t like that took advantage of my absence and the special-grade to tactfully dispose of him.”

The aura of shock that fell over the watchers was palpable as they processed Gojo’s last sentence.

Penny’s sigh broke through the din of silence. “I knew it,” she muttered.

Ruby rounded on the android instantly. “Wait, you KNEW?”

“Well, ‘knew’ is an exaggeration. More like I suspected it…”

“Why didn’t you say anything?!”

“Because I wasn’t sure.” Penny looked her distraught best friend in the eye. “Right from the start of the mission, it felt…off. Like Miss Gojo just said, sending first-year students to rescue five people whose survival chances were low at best should be out of the question, especially with a special-grade cursed spirit potentially on the loose. Their deaths would have been a blow to jujutsu society, a society that is already understaffed. Then I looked at the identities of the three students and realized–”

“That one was Salem’s vessel,” Blake finished.

Their shocks turned to anger, each one wishing they could jump into the screen and hunt down these so-called higher-ups who would comfortably orchestrate the death of a child.

Oobleck covered his mouth in horror while Summer continued. “If the other two had also died, it’d be more harassment for me and two birds with one stone for them.”

“How are they so comfortable playing with people’s lives?” Ruby yelled, angry tears licking at the corner of her eyes. “These are children’s lives!”

“And didn’t they say they were short on sorcerers? How does this help them in any way?!” Nora asked, not able to hold in her anger anymore.

Weiss scoffed bitterly. “When it comes to power, you’d be surprised the lengths people like them will go through to keep it.”

“And how idiotic they can be,” Blake added.

“No, but…” the assistant manager tried to excuse it. “No one expected it to become a special-grade by the time the dispatch was issued.”

“That’s hardly an excuse,” Ren growled under his breath.

“Searching for someone to blame is just a pain. Maybe I should just…” Her voice deepened to a growl to match the glare on her face. “…kill all the higher-ups.”

The watchers were taken aback by the pure vitriol in the woman’s tone. Up until now, she had been all laughs and thinly veiled arrogance. Seeing her upset to the point of rage was a new experience.

Oobleck gasped, taking a step back in terror at her casual admission.

The door slid open, interrupting their conversation. A familiar-looking blonde man with blue eyes and tanned skin wearing scrubs and a white coat strolled into the morgue.

“You’re not usually this emotional,” Taiyang noted.

“It’s good to see you, Mr. Xiao Long!” Oobleck bowed in greeting.

“Dad!” Ruby and Yang cheered.

Jaune glanced between the man on the screen and the girls. “I can see the resemblance with Yang but…”

“Ruby took a lot after Summer. Dad’s handsome genes didn’t stand a chance,” Yang said with a snort, earning her a pinch from her embarrassed sister.

He ran a hand through his hair. “Looks to me like you’ve taken quite a liking to him.”

“I’ve always been a nice guy who cares for my students,” Summer said.

“Don’t torment Oobleck, too much,” Taiyang chided playfully. “He’s got it rough, stuck between us and the higher-ups.”

Oobleck turned red. Keep going! Keep going! Keep going! He thought with a smile, happy that someone noticed his troubles.

“I don’t care about a man’s hardships.”

“That so?” Taiyang’s blasé answer snapped the assistant out of his daydream.

Some of them laughed.

“Poor guy. I couldn’t imagine having to deal with Gojo everyday,” said Pyrrha, trying to mask the humour in her voice.

“So this is…” Taiyang lifted the cloth revealing Jaune’s corpse. “…Salem’s vessel, huh?”

Jaune visibly flinched as the camera focused on his alter’s corpse. He wanted to turn away from the unsightly image but just like witnessing a disaster scene, he found it hard to look away. Like his eyes were trying to sear the image into his brain.

This is gonna give me nightmares, he lamented.

Unknown to him, his feelings were shared by his friends.

He stared down at the body impassively. “I can take him apart as I please, right?”

“Make sure to get good use out of him,” Summer replied.

“Oh, I will. Who do you think I am?”

Ruby reared back in shock. “What do they mean ‘take him apart’?!”

“It’s an autopsy, Ruby. Standard medical practice. I doubt it’s anything nefarious,” said Ren.

[][][]

“‘Live a long life’?” Nora muttered, repeating Jaune’s last words. Herself and Ren were seated on the stairs leading into a building. “Doesn’t mean much when you go and die yourself.” Turning to the silent teen, she asked, “Is this your first time having a partner die?”

“First time for one my age,” he responded.

“I forgot that he’s been a sorcerer before meeting Jaune and Nora,” Yang muttered.

The boy’s answer had everyone wondering how many friends– if they could be called that– or teammates he had seen die.

They sat in silence for a few seconds before she spoke up again. “You seem to be taking it well, considering.”

“Same to you,” he fired back.

“Of course,” she said, looking off to the side. “I only knew him for about two weeks. I’m not some simple woman who breaks down when a guy I barely know dies.”

Her attempts at appearing nonchalant didn’t last long, and a murmured “Jeez” drew Ren’s attention to her trembling lips as she struggled to rein in her tears.

Many eyes misted and another round of sobs threatened to begin.

He looked away, giving her the privacy to mourn. He couldn’t blame her; he felt even worse. After all, he had watched Jaune die to save him. They settled into a comfortable silence, letting nature’s sounds from the forest fill the air.

“It’s hot, huh?” Ren asked suddenly.

“Yeah,” she responded after a moment. “Wonder if it’s time for summer uniforms.”

“Was that supposed to be your attempt at comforting?” Nora whispered to her partner, whose face broke out into an embarrassed blush.

The companionable silence returned, with not even the sound of nearby footsteps pulling them from their reverie. “What’s this?” a voice that had the audience perking up in surprise asked, drawing their attentions.

“Wait, is that–” Ruby gasped, receiving a nod from her sister.

“I’d recognize that annoying voice anywhere. That’s definitely the ice princess.” Yang summarily ignored Weiss’ offended “Hey!” at her comment.

“You’re looking more glum than usual, Lie.” The camera panned up revealing the watchers’ predictions to be true. For all intents and purposes, the girl on the screen resembled her doppelganger, with the only minor cosmetic differences being that the Weiss onscreen was dressed in the standard Jujutsu High uniform with a pair of leggings, and sported a pair of glasses.

“This a wake or something?”

“Yay! It’s really you, Weiss!” Ruby yelled, enthusiastically shaking her partner.

“Let…me…go!” With a grunt, the heiress extricated herself from her partner’s grasp before taking a good look at her alter. Truly, there weren’t any difference as far as physical appearance was concerned. Still, there was something about the way her alter carried herself that Weiss couldn’t help noticing.

It seemed Yang noticed because her first comment was, “She looks badass.”

“She could stand to have some tact, though,” Blake added.

“Maybe she doesn’t know that their friend died?” Ren offered in way of an explanation.

“Zenin,” Ren greeted her.

“Don’t call me by my last name!” Weiss admonished. Any further conversation was interrupted by a hushed yell of “Weiss! Weiss!” from behind her.

She turned back to the panda and Blake peeking out from behind the stone statue. “I’m talking here,” she barked.

“Y-You don’t actually know why they’re so down?” the panda asked, seemingly flabbergasted by her ignorance.

To say the watchers were stunned was an understatement. With widened eyes and dropped jaws, the group watched as Weiss’ counterpart tried to convince Blake’s counterpart and a literal talking panda that her blasé comment earlier came from a position of ignorance, and not insensitivity. No one even took note of other Blake’s strange responses, their brains too fried to even focus on her.

“A-are you guys seeing this?” Yang rasped, unable to tear her eyes away from the screen.

“A walking talking panda standing behind Blake? I think we’re all seeing it,” was Pyrrha’s reply.

Nora’s shock instantly switched to excitement. “OMG, I can’t believe they have a panda! Is it a pet? Is it a jujutsu sorcerer? Is it a pet that’s a jujutsu sorcerer? Or a jujutsu sorcerer that’s a pet? Can I have one? I want one!”

“I highly doubt you can find a talking panda in our world,” Ren answered dryly, just as Jaune asked, “I thought you like sloths?”

She scoffed, waving her hand dismissively. “I prefer sloths but I won’t complain about a TALKING panda.”

Penny gleefully jumped up and down, shaking Ruby as she did so. “I knew it! I knew that panda in the opening musical sequence wasn’t just for show!”

Weiss snorted. “And I was wrong, apparently.”

“Let’s rewind and keep watching. We missed a lot in our surprise,” said Blake.

“What are you talking about?”

“Someone really did die yesterday!” He informed her. “One of the first-year boys!”

“Bonito flakes,” Blake added with a nod.

Blake blinked owlishly. “Huh?”

Her eyes widened in panic as she stiffly turned to her friends. “You should’ve told me sooner!” she yelled at them. “Now I look like some heartless, cold-blooded demon!”

The panda chose to add fuel to the fire. “That’s exactly how you came off.”

“Tuna and mayo,” Blake agreed, adding to Weiss’ ire.

“You’re supposed to try to make me feel better!”

“Tuna and mayo? Bonito flakes?” Weiss repeated confusedly.

Yang burst into raucous laughter. “She…she talks in food ingredients?!”

Blake’s face turned red, cat ears dipping as she ducked her head into her pyjamas. “Shut up,” she mumbled.

Ren looked on unperturbed at the scuffle, having gotten used to sights like it. Not Nora, though, who stared at the newcomers in surprise and a little bit of confusion.

“Who are those guys?” she asked, pointing at them.

“Our second-year upperclassmen,” he responded.

Weiss puffed up a bit. “Heh. We’re your seniors.”

“So we really aren’t all the same age in this universe,” Pyrrha surmised.

“I wonder how far that goes,” Jaune hummed, deep in thought. “A year? Five years? What if we’re generations apart?”

Yang shivered uncomfortably at the thought. “Can you imagine having been born 100 years before the present? I’d be all old and wrinkly!”

“Or dead,” Ruby supplied unhelpfully, sticking her tongue out when her sister deadpanned at her.

“But how does that work? True, we might be universes apart but is that not too much of a drastic change in our lives?” asked Penny. “Is that other Yang truly Yang if she was born a century before now? If Taiyang Xiao Long and Raven Branwen aren’t her parents in that other universe, can she really be called Yang? Or is it someone who just looks like her?”

Her question sent the teens into a contemplative mood.

“Maybe physical appearance is what cuts it,” said Yang. “Sure, sharing a similar genetic makeup will work wonders for physical similarities but people look alike all the time, related or not.”

“I doubt it’s that shallow,” was Blake’s retort. “People are more than just their physical appearances. You personality traits, preferences, world views; these are all part of things that define your character.”

Ruby nodded. “Like how kindhearted Jaune is, both in our universe and this one we’re watching!”

“But what about your mother?” Weiss asked with a raised eyebrow. “I can’t say what Summer Rose was like but Summer Gojo comes off as an arrogant womanz with good intentions, who goes about declaring herself as the strongest.”

“I’d say she’s more confident in her own abilities but you have a point,” Nora muttered, her partner nodding beside her.

Ruby and Yang bristled at Weiss’ comment but they found it hard to argue with her. The Summer Rose they knew was a kind, caring and attentive mother. She was a “supermom”, as Yang liked to put it. While Summer Gojo had shown some moments of kindness, such as fighting to have Jaune’s execution suspended because his student asked him to, it still didn’t remove that…detached and arrogant aura she exuded whenever she was onscreen.

Maybe Mom was like that but we never knew, Yang mused. It was possible; after all, the woman was a licensed Huntress. Her work and domestic mannerisms could be as different as night and day.

Jaune groaned, massaging his temple. “This is giving me a headache. I don’t think we can figure this out.”

“He’s right.” Jaune smiled at his partner agreeing with him. “We could spend all night discussing the philosophizing the theory of multiversal doppelgangers and still not come to a conclusion. Unless our mysterious benefactor tells us why, let’s carry on with our watch.”

They all agreed.

“You have to be kinder to your underclassmen,” Panda told Weiss, who was pouting, cheeks a bit flushed from her earlier mistake.

“There’s more to kindness than being soft on them,” she mumbled.

“Weiss Zenin is the best of all the students at wielding cursed tools,” Ren introduced her to Nora.

“Salmon roe,” Blake agreed.

“That’s the Cursed Speech user, Blake Belladonna. She can only speak in ingredients of rice balls.”

“She’s a bit softer when Ruby’s around, though,” the panda noted, who was simply introduced as “Panda”.

Ruby perked up when her name was called.

“There’s one more, Ruby Rose, who’s the only one I can openly respect,” Ren said, rising to his feet, “but she’s overseas right now.”

Weiss gawked at Ren’s declaration while Ruby jumped up with a cheer. “He respects her more than me?!”

“Awwn, is the Ice Queen jealous?” Nora teased, laughing when said Ice Queen’s glare was turned on her.

“Thanks for nothing, Ren,” a thoroughly unimpressed Blake snarked, causing Yang to join Nora’s cackles.

“I’m just happy that I’m friends with you all even in another universe,” said Ruby, still jittery with excitement. “Well, some of you.” Her good mood plummeted when she realized her counterpart and Jaune's would likely never meet.

Nora leveled a dry glare at him. “You’re not adding more about the panda named Panda?”

“Thank you!” Nora cried in agreement.

“Man, sorry about this. And when you’re in mourning…Please forgive us for that.” Panda bowed in apology. “The truth is, we’d like you to participate in the Kyoto Sister School Exchange Event.”

“Kyoto Sister School Exchange Event? What’s that?” Nora asked Ren.

“It’s a get-together with the other Tech school in Kyoto,” Ren replied before turning to their upperclassmen. “Though isn’t that event mainly second- and third-years?”

“And those stupid third-years are suspended right now,” Weiss pointed out. “So you need to participate.”

“Wonder what they did to get suspended,” Jaune mused.

Nora co*cked her head to the left, still looking unsure. “What do you do at this event? Smash Bros. ? I won’t lose if it’s the Wii version. I’ll Meteor Smash so you can’t come back!”

“Then let’s make a 3-man team,” Panda answered before returning to the explanation of the event. “The exchange event has the principals of the Tokyo and Kyoto schools each propose a form of competition to be held for an entire day over the course of two days. Though that’s just how it is on paper. Every year, the first day is team battles, and the second day is individual battles.”

“It’s kinda like the Vytal Festival,” said Yang.

“Inter-school competition where the students fight each other for entertainment.” Blake smiled. “Sounds like the Vytal Festival, alright.”

“Salmon,” Blake nodded.

Nora barked out a laugh. “That will never not be weird. Funny, though!”

Whatever Blake wanted to say was cut off when she noticed her partner’s cheshire grin. “If you make a cat joke, I will replace all your shampoo with pink hair dye!” she hissed.

Still grinning, Yang raised her hands in surrender.

Nora slowly processed this information. “Individual and team battles?” The realization hit her like a truck. “We fight?! Against other jujutsu sorcerers?!”

Weiss’ lips split into a wide grin. “Yeah, it’s a jujutsu battle where anything but killing goes.”

“We’ll train you up well so you won’t get killed. Yeah, yeah, yeah!” Panda enthusiastically pumped his fists.

“Killed?” Weiss shrieked. “People die in the exchange event?!”

Pyrrha gaped, taken aback by the news. “Maybe he’s exaggerating to scare them…?”

“I’m surprised they have such events in the first place.” Penny decided to give her input. “With how short-staffed they are, is an event like this truly important?”

“I guess we’ll know now,” Ren replied, seeing Nora ask the second-years the same thing.

“That’s a good question. For now, we are,” Panda responded. “The glum emotions people harbour from late winter through spring cause an outburst of curses in the early summer, so that’s our busy season.”

“Sometimes, we’re busy all year long, but things should be settling down soon,” Weiss added.

Nora voiced an understanding hum.

“So, you’ll do it, right?” the cursed tool wielder asked. “You just had a partner die on you, after all.”

“Weiss!” Pyrrha chided.

“Too soon, girl.” Yang shook her head in mock disappointment. “You really need to learn some tact.”

Her eye twitched. “I’m not the one who lacks tact! She…” Weiss aggressively pointed to her alter. “…is the one who does!”

“We’re in!” the first-years declared. I…have to get stronger. I’ll do anything to achieve that! An image of their recently departed friend came to the forefront of their minds as they vowed to become stronger to honour his dying wishes.

“You guys~” Jaune felt his eyes tear up, accepting a fist bump from Ren and a ‘gentle pat’ to the back from Nora.

“But if I decide this training and exchange event is pointless, I’m quitting instantly,” Nora informed them, with Ren agreeing as well.

Weiss scoffed with a smile.

“Well, people this co*cky are all the more worthwhile to train,” Panda said.

Blake voiced her approval. “Bonito flakes.”

“Tuna and mayo to you, too,” Ruby replied, causing a tick to grow on Blake’s forehead.

[][][]

The scene shifted back to the cafe restaurant where Raven and the curses were hanging out.

Yang scowled upon seeing her birth mother again but said nothing.

“So you’re saying your boss wants to reverse the current positions of people and curses. Is that it?” Raven asked the volcano-head curse.

Ruby co*cked her head to the side. “Their boss? I thought Raven was the boss?”

“Maybe it’s a mutually beneficial partnership. She helps them in exchange for something,” said Pyrrha.

“Well, roughly. It’s slightly different, though.” He looked back at all the people in the cafe. “Humans and faunus are made up of lies. For every positive action and emotion they show, there’s always a flip-side. Yet negative emotions like hatred and hostility are truths without falsehood. Since we curses are born from those emotions, that makes us true, pure beings! Imitations should be eliminated!” he proudly declared.

“What sort of sh*tty logic is that?” Blake asked incredulously. “You can flip that around and say for every negative action and emotion they show, there’s always a flip-side. Coming from something ‘pure’ doesn’t put you at the top.”

“It’s a monster, Blake. I won’t put much stock into whatever justification it creates to kill people,” said Weiss dismissively.

“Yet, at present, you’re the ones being eliminated,” Raven countered.

“Ha, burn!” Nora taunted.

“That’s why we’ve come to ask you. What can we do to defeat the jujutsu sorcerers?”

Raven cracked an eye open with a smile, holding up two fingers. “If you fulfill two conditions before going to war, then you can win.”

“And what are these two conditions?” The volcano-head leaned forward eagerly.

She put a finger down. “The first involves the woman known as the strongest jujutsu sorcerer. You have to render Summer Gojo incapable of fighting. The second is to get Ryomen Salem and Jaune Arc on your side.”

Ruby’s expression morphed into a confused frown. “I’m not too sure on the first condition but that second one…it’s impossible, right?”

“It should be,” Pyrrha muttered. “Jaune’s dead, so how can they get him and Salem on their side?”

Raven’s lips twisted into a dark grin. “Did he, though? I’m not so sure.”

Jaune gaped. “What do you mean by that? I'm pretty sure a body without a heart is death!”

“For most people. But don't forget; you're Salem's host,” said Penny. “We've already seen her restore your hand. What's stopping her from healing your heart?”

“How about the fact that she's the one who ripped it out in the first place?” Ren asked sardonically.

[][][]

The scene switched back to Jaune’s body on the table, looking as lifeless as ever.

The sight of Jaune’s corpse caused many to flinch again.

The camera zoomed in on the dried up hole in his chest until it faded to dark.

“Don’t look inside me without permission. I hate it…brat,” Salem uttered. The darkness faded, revealing her now dressed in a kimono and sitting atop a mountain of horned skulls. She grinned darkly as the episode cut to the end credits.

Yang threw up her hands in frustration. “Oh come on! You can't just end the episode there!”

“Jaune's alive!!” Nora cheered, picking up said boy like he weighed nothing and spinning him around to the beat of the closing song. Poor Jaune could only go along with her shenanigans.

Pyrrha shook her head amusedly. “I guess there are some perks to being Salem's host.”

“I wonder what changed, though.” Penny's brows furrowed. “I would've thought Salem didn't care whether or not Jaune died. There are 17 other fragments of her soul still out there so why bother reviving Jaune that has only three?”

“You know there's no actual confirmation that Jaune is going to be revived, right?” Blake's commented dryly. “All we know is that he's not dead yet . Salem could still choose not to heal his heart, killing him permanently.”

Her comment cut through the good mood like a hot knife through butter.

“Way to kill the good mood, Blake,” Yang said with a deadpan glare.

“The pleasure is all mine.”

“Juju Stroll.”

“Salmon.”

“You stink,” Weiss said while hanging out with her friends at the training grounds.

“I don’t stink,” Panda replied tiredly.

“You stink.”

“I don’t stink!” Panda slumped to the floor, dejected. “Why are you treating me like an animal?”

“Because you're a panda,” said Weiss at the same time as her doppelganger, much to her friends’ amusem*nt.

“Mustard leaf,” Blake chimed in.

“You smell like an animal,” Weiss reiterated. “I keep telling you to take a bath, and you never do.”

Ren took note of the figure of speech. Like an animal? Does this mean he isn't an actual panda?

“I don’t like getting wet. But unlike you guys, I don’t sweat, and I Febreze everyday,” Panda explained. “So I don’t stink.”

“…your use of air freshener instead of a deodorant is concerning,” said Yang.

Fast-forward to Weiss finishing her explanation of the situation to Ren and Nora. “So that’s what happened. You guys try taking a whiff.”

The duo hovered over the panda, sniffing to catch any horrid smells.

Ren spoke up. “Doesn’t really stink. Sort of smells like the sun.”

Weiss and Nora blushed in surprise. Sunshine!

Ruby blinked, confused. “What's that about?”

“I didn't know the sun had a smell,” Nora mumbled.

“It doesn't. Moving on,” said Ren, “that was another entertaining episode.”

“And depressing,” Ruby added. “Mostly depressing, actually.”

“At least there's a possibility that I can come back so there's that,” Jaune said, smiling.

“Salem is a bitch for ripping out your heart.” Yang shuddered, remembering the still beating heart held in the curse’s hand. “The fact that she can live without a heart is insane to think of!”

Ren nodded. “Even more impressive is her regenerative capabilities. Restoring a hand and a heart is an impressive feat.”

“What was it they called it again?” Ruby peeked at Weiss’ notes, skimming to the top. “Reverse cursed techniques.”

“Other Renny better learn how to use it fast. At the rate he's been getting his ass kicked just five episodes in, learning to heal himself is an invaluable skill.”

“I wonder who the girl– Amber, right?– is,” Pyrrha mused, having rewound the episode to the dark-skinned girl from Ren’s memories. “A friend, perhaps?”

“Maybe she's family. A sister, maybe. Or cousin.” Ren shrugged. “I know we look nothing alike but neither do Ruby and Yang. Hopefully we'll find out exactly who she is to me.”

“Let's move on the next episode,” said Blake. Getting nods of agreement, she hit play.